


We'll Run for Our Lives

by Mulford



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Cop!AU, Doctor!Bucky, M/M, Slow Burn, cop!steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2016-08-23
Packaged: 2018-08-07 06:14:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 56,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7703644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mulford/pseuds/Mulford
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve Rogers has never doubted his job choice. He’s a homicide detective in New York, a job he loves and allows him to live opposite his lifelong best friend, Bucky Barnes. But when the evidence in a series of homicides starts leading to Bucky with more and certainty, Steve is conflicted. On one hand, there's his best friend claiming innocence and on the other his partners who seem convinced that Bucky is the killer. He has to reconcile his feelings for James Buchanan Barnes with the thought that maybe, just maybe his coworkers are right and Steve is just too blinded to see it. How far will Steve go to prove Bucky's innocence? How far will Steve go to save him?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Apartment 6-B

**Author's Note:**

> Don't forget to check out the lovely art posted by [Bobeep](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/sbb2016/works/7895083) and [claredevil](http://claredevil.tumblr.com/post/149617673442/click-for-hq-this-is-based-off-of)

Sometimes, Steve _really_ regrets living in an apartment building. This is one of those occasions. And it is not that he hates the neighbors, not entirely. He doesn’t mind noise, he’ll water neighbors’ plants when they are out of town and takes care of their pets if they want him to.

Steve can only take so much, especially from neighbors he hasn’t even met yet. And he can’t take Colin Matthews. Not today. He might have been able to live with it on another day, just not after unpacking what felt like hundreds of boxes and working out how to assemble IKEA furniture with Thor (“ _I may be from Sweden, but that does not mean that I can assemble IKEA furniture, Steven… no, you need to use the smaller wooden planks… Yeah, those._ ”). He was already running on fumes by the time the sun started setting while there were – and still are – ten boxes or so left to unpack, so _now_ , roughly eight hours later, even the fumes have burnt up. But his upstairs neighbor _won’t shut up_ and Steve is not going to listen to him rant about Star Wars anymore. It’s four AM, for crying out loud.

Getting to the actual floor is somewhat tricky, as Steve a) doesn’t want to wake Thor, who is asleep on the couch and b) there are a _lot_ of boxes in the way. Most of those are unpacked, but tossed to the side somewhere and he’ll send them all crashing down if he walks into them. However tired he was when he gave up on unpacking boxes for the day, he should have at least put the empty boxes in a corner somewhere, where he can’t run into them. In avoiding the boxes, he steps onto a runaway screwdriver, pointy end first. The curse he has to suppress very nearly makes its way past Steve’s mouth, even though Steve cursing might not  wake Thor up, he’d rather be safe than sorry. Steve has no clue how Thor can sleep through the upstairs neighbor’s yelling, but whatever magic it is, he wants a part of that. Sleep sounds _really, really_ good right now.

Admittedly, Steve isn’t going to look all that impressive in a pair of paint splattered pajama shorts and an old, faded ‘ _The Beatles_ ’ T-shirt but he doesn’t need to be impressive, he needs to get his neighbor to be quiet for the rest of the night. He leaves his door open on a crack, which might not be the best idea with the kind of neighborhood he lives in. But hey, if he lived in a nicer hood, he would need to pay double the rent for an apartment half this size. So if Steve has to pretend not to notice that the neighbor’s kid sneaks out in the middle of the night, or that the gun his landlord keeps in his closet, isn’t actually legal? He won’t mind.

Steve isn’t the only tenant who decided that arguing at four AM is firmly on the ‘ _NO_ ’ list. The other tenant isn’t so much knocking on the guy’s door as knocking it _in_ , the door creaking uncomfortably with each rap. But that’s not what has Steve pausing in the hallway, an amused smile on his lips.

The cause of that? A familiar metal gleam off of a metal arm (“ _It’s a_ Vibranium-Titanium alloy _Steve! Don’t call it metal!”_ Tony would say, in that fake hurt tone of his). Colin Matthews comes out of the apartment, almost knocking the door straight into Bucky’s face when he does so. Impossibly, Colin looks even more disheveled than Steve does: his thickly rimmed glasses are dangling haphazardly from the top of his nose, his hair looks like it’s been through a storm and he is wearing what Steve hopes are the most tattered clothes in his closet.

“ _What_?!” Colin snaps. No one is in a good mood on a Sunday morning, apparently. Bucky inches a little closer, using the door as a support.

“Listen to me, you fucking asshole,” Bucky snaps right back. “I don’t care who you are talking to. You need to either shut the hell up or tone it down. It’s _four a-fucking-m_ and the rest of us need sleep.” People always seem to think that Bucky was the one to rile Steve up, that Bucky started the fights and Steve helped finish them. Nothing could be more wrong. Bucky definitely picked up on Steve’s desire to start fights and stubborn asshole-ness during the years but it has always been Steve who pulled the first punch. Steve wipes the smile off his face before he joins Bucky at the door, figuring that bright smiles and the ‘ _it’s four AM, shut the fuck up_ ’ message don’t really fit together. When Colin opens his mouth to speak again, Bucky continues, voice a low growl:

“ _Don’t even bother_. You’re going to stop that argument or go outside to talk. Either way’s fine with me. If you don’t, I’ll stop it for you.” Bucky’s voice reminds Steve of their old drill sergeant. It only makes Colin more stubborn: he pushes the glasses back up his nose briskly, then steps closer to Bucky. They are standing almost chest to chest, Bucky comically tall compared to Colin and a lot more muscular. Like a high school kid picking on a middle grader. Or for that matter young Steve versus anyone. Steve wouldn’t have backed off either. Not a chance. “Hey there, Steve.”

“Buck,” Steve acknowledges slowly, then gestures to Colin. “Any luck?”

“Not a clue. You gonna listen?” Even while he is speaking, Bucky’s eyes don’t wander away from Colin, who looks about ready to wet himself. If Steve hadn’t been so used to Bucky’s buff appearance, if he were in Colin’s spot right now… he would be, too.

“Why the hell should I listen to you?” Colin barks, dropping his phone into the nearest pocket. “If I wanna argue about Star Trek then I fucking will. No matter the hour.” There is a certain slur to his voice, but Steve has to admire the fight in this kid. Like a lapdog, biting and barking at everything bigger and vaguely terrifying.

The border between bravery and stupidity is thin. Colin crosses it without thinking. Unfortunately, he doesn’t really fight a lot or maybe it is just that he doesn’t care right now, because the way he throws punches leaves a messy hole for someone to turn the punch into an attack. Bucky has no desire to fight, he just steps aside. Steve… well, he isn’t in a very tranquil mood. He cuts in and intercepts Colin’s fist midair, using the momentum to turn him around and twist the arm around his back, a bit too forcefully. When he pushes forward, Colin slams face-first into the wall and actually leaves a small dent.

“Listen, or I’ll arrest you for attempted assault.” He keeps his tone calm and smooth but threatening. He turns to Bucky, who has this vague smug smile on his face. “Unless _you_ really wanna press charges?”

“Alright, _alright_. Got it. Just let me go.” Steve lets Colin go and Colin scrambles away from them back into his apartment, though not before flipping both of them off. Oh yeah, this guy is definitely like young Steve. Bucky just laughs.

“You know, I could have dealt with him,” he says amusedly. “ _Had him on the ropes_.” Steve rolls his eyes. He’s used that line countless of times. Knows it by heart, and Bucky knows exactly which tone he used to use. Which, Steve figures, is why it sounds exactly like that now. God, it’s annoying when someone uses it against him.

“I know you did,” he replies. “I used to too.” Which isn’t true for _all_ of the times; some days, he really could have used that bit of help. If he hadn’t had Bucky for half of those fights, they would have ended a lot worse.

“Except you used to have a broken nose or bloody knuckles when you said that,” Bucky says, fondly. “Or _worse_. You were a menace, Rogers.” Steve laughs, slow and steady. The kind of laugh that only Bucky pulls out.

“I’m insulted. I still _am_ a menace,” he replies as they make their way back to the stairwell. “I just do a better job of hiding it.”

 

They walk back down to the sixth floor in the relative dark, the only light provided by the window near the landing between two flights of stairs. It is barely enough but Steve doesn’t need a lot of light to navigate this place, unfamiliar as it still is. Colorblind he may be, but he can see well enough.

“Please don’t tell me that all the neighbors are like that,” Steve mutters, fingers trailing over the stair railing. The light through the window only lights one side of Bucky’s face as they pass it; the strange play of light would make for a great portrait; the portrait of a worn man. It’s only been a couple of weeks since Steve has seen Bucky, but even now he looks worn, more than just a simple jetlag could explain. Steve’s stomach drops and he can barely keep the smile on his face.

“They’re not,” Bucky replies distractedly. If he’s aware of Steve watching him, he isn’t mentioning it. Steve isn’t sure whether he can care enough right now. “Not all, anyway. Guy in 3… B, I think but it might be A, he’s a bit of a douche. Gets drunk couple of times a week and then gets to acting out Les Misérables in the hallway. He’s a surprisingly good singer. Apart from that… 8-D has a big dog that sometimes gets too cooped up and barks all night. The guy works night shifts, his daughter isn’t home a lot of nights. Whatever parties they’re throwing on weekdays, she’s usually there.” It’s not disapproving, not entirely. Bucky sometimes did the same. They both did.

“You’re joking, right? The _entirety_ of Les Mis?” Steve can sing along to most of the songs, though he doesn’t sing them well. Acting out the whole movie though? “Even Javert’s dramatic fall? Does he jump off the stairs and break his legs?”

“He did the Javert jump the first time,” Bucky replies grimly. “His tibia was sticking out of his shin. Broke most of the bones in his feet. Guy’s god damned lucky I was there to call the hospital and to make sure no one’d move him too much. Nearly had an arterial bleed on my hands.” He shakes his head disappointedly. “He has reigned himself in since then. But who knows? Maybe he’ll try again.” Steve just laughs, Bucky undoubtedly told that story to every single one of his coworkers, from the guys in pediatrics to the thin, wiry guy manning the morgue, if the ease with which he tells it is anything to judge by. “Sorry I couldn’t be there to help you move in.”

“That’s okay. You have a good excuse,” Steve says. “Besides, I had Thor help me – and sleeping on my couch. No idea how he slept through the yelling.” He bumps into Bucky slightly. “C’mon, help me unpack the last boxes tomorrow, if you wanna make up for your guilt. There’s still ten or so. Seems like everything important is in them though.” Bucky cracks half an unconvinced smile. It never reaches his eyes.

“While I _definitely_ don’t feel as guilty as you think I may be feeling, I’ll help you, because I’m such a good friend.” Bucky leans against his door and pauses there. “Reckon you’ll be able to fall asleep?” Steve sighs. It’s probably _too_ late to try and sleep. He’ll wake up at six, no matter what. He’s got work to go to, after all.

“Probably not,” he says. “You?” Bucky shrugs.

“I’m on call. Can’t sleep, or I’ll sleep through my pager going off. How’d you feel about going down to Elena and Nikolai’s coffee shop and bakery? They’re open all night.... and Elena bakes better muffins than even my мама can.” Steve smiles, a little forlorn. Because Misses Barnes – _Winifred_ – always had the best muffins he’s tasted.

“I haven’t unpacked my clothing yet. Don’t wanna wake Thor,” Steve replies apologetically. “Unless you’d take me with you dressed like this, I am going to have to pass.” He gestures vaguely towards his shorts and t-shirt. It’s too cold for going out in too, but he could borrow a coat from Bucky if need be. Bucky stares at him for a minute, contemplating.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t want to wake that guy either,” he says finally. “So. No Elena and Nikolai… Do you want to come in for coffee? That I _can_ offer.”

“I’d like some coffee, yeah," he says and he may sigh a bit, but it’s not because Bucky keeps insisting, it really isn't. It's just that he's missed this. They have spent a _lot_ of nights like this: sitting up and talking to each other. In the past few weeks, it has always been through a couple of minutes of Skype-time in what for each of them would be night. After a while, he did get used to Bucky’s grainy webcam footage from Russia and cut-in-cut-out voice bits. They’d get maybe ten minutes of choppy ' _wait, what did you just say?_ 's before someone came to call Bucky back, until Steve’s attention was needed for a case, or his break was over and they’d say half-hearted goodbyes. “We’ll be able to talk for more than ten minutes for a change. You can tell me all about what happened in Russia.”

“Not all that much happened,” Bucky says as he opens the door but then stops in his tracks, meaningfully looking at the door on the other side of the hall. “You might want to at least close your door, Rogers.”

“Oh, _right_ ,” Steve mutters and goes to close the door, reaching out for his phone, wallet and the keys that are on the kitchen counter. It is not that he doesn’t trust Thor, but he’s learnt along the way that it is better to keep his stuff around, especially if he has to leave in a hurry. The keys jingle, but not loud enough to wake Thor, who is still sound asleep. Steve is honestly not sure that anything short of a heavy earthquake would wake him up. Still, he leaves a note for Thor saying just where he is.

 

 

 

 

Bucky’s apartment, though it is almost as much home to Steve as Sarah Roger’s house is, has a remarkable clean and impersonal look about it. Somehow Bucky seems to have fit in even less furniture than Steve has, though Steve’s quite a bit smaller. It has an almost Spartan look about it; the kitchen is spotless, no dishes in the sink, the cups in the cupboards neatly stacked sorted by size, then color. There’s hardly any decorating with the exception of three photos and a (maybe fake) plant or two. Hardly a book is out of place on the shelf. Steve won’t be surprised if he finds hospital corners on Bucky’s bed. Old habits die hard; army ones have an even harder time dying. Despite it, the apartment somehow has character. The furniture is old and worn and makes it look warm and comfortable. Steve settles on one of the living room chairs, kicking up his feet on the coffee table. Bucky had been watching a movie, though Steve can’t figure out which one it actually is from the apartment building it is paused on.. Bucky pours them both a cup of coffee before he joins Steve on the couch. Bucky doesn’t so much just sits as he lounges, pushes his feet up against Steve’s leg. Toes tapping against bare skin.

“I think I should have gone with them those past few years,” Bucky confides and his shoulders slump. The charming charade falls off and he doesn’t so much look tired as _weary_.

“Oh?” Steve mutters, taking a sip of his coffee. “What happened?” With anyone else, this would be awkward. But this is Bucky. Bucky who he’s shared a bed on sleepovers until they were around thirteen, and Steve’s ma insisted that they were growing too big to share Steve’s small bed. Admittedly, that was also around the time that Bucky started to get taller so they _didn’t_ fit anymore. Not without sleeping so close together Steve could feel Bucky’s breath on his neck or the other way around and one or both of them would wake up on the ground next to the bed. In summer they’d both be sticky with sweat and uncomfortable , unable to sleep until the night is almost through.

“Nothing much, honestly,” Bucky replies absently, he is twirling the back of his hair and stares at a spot just above Steve’s head. Good thing he isn’t really looking at Steve, because he would _hate_ the concerned frown on Steve’s face, he’s never done well with concern. “They didn’t recognize me.” He’s speaking silently, without his usual bravado. Steve’s face falls further. Bucky loves that part of his family. Them not recognizing him? That must have hurt. Hurt bad. “I got off the plane last, and my niece and nephew were there, and little Yakov went and ran over to мама and папа, all excited yelling: ‘Тётя, дядя!’ and Becca got a hug, and Kolya, Lena, Becca and Maxim too. And he just sort of stared at me.” It still surprises Steve just how much Bucky’s voice changes when he speaks Russian. It turns into something soothing but rough, a lot more musical than his English. Even when he’s feeling down. Steve’s tried for years to replicate that kind of voice when _he_ speaks Russian, but he can’t even get it half right, and only sounds stupid.

“That’s what you get for lookin’ like a serial killer, Buck,” he teases, he needs to wipe that frown off of Bucky’s face, that scowl. Sooner, rather than later. And Bucky _does_ look like a serial killer, with that beard and unkempt long hair, though he’s got it tied back for now. “Little kids don’t recognize you. Besides, they haven’t seen you for _years_ Buck. He was barely a year old when you saw him last.” Bucky hums, not exactly unhappy but disagreeing.

“I wasn’t expecting _him_ to recognize me, not really. But they told him I was going with them. He didn’t even say hello or something. He just oddly stared like I was the boy carrying their baggage and went back to my mom. And I _don’t_ look like a serial killer.” Bucky pushes Steve with the tip of his toes.

“Oh, _please_. Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately? You look like you’ve been up all night studying building plans… Don’t look at me like that, you do! Didn’t you sleep on the plane?” Steve asks, somewhat concerned. Bucky’s scowl turns playful.

“Who says I haven’t? I might be planning an attack on your PD, Stevie. Better arrest me. I did sleep though not that well. Bumpy flight,” he replies, then hesitantly adds: “I might need a shave.”

“You couldn’t bring yourself to hurt Lucky and you know it,” Steve replies. Though Bucky hasn’t been in the station yet, he knows the golden retriever from when Clint went on vacation and Steve took care of him. Lucky and Bucky’s cat Dmitri got along great. “I’m surprised your grandma didn’t cut your hair while you were there. You always came back with trimmed hair when we were young.” It was probably the only person Bucky would _allow_ to cut his hair, the only haircut he would ever get throughout the year, when they were younger, no matter how long and unruly his hair got.

“She cut off the ends,” Bucky allows, but pulls his hair back to reveal a thin, jagged scar from the back of his ear to the base of his neck, the symbol of H.Y.D.R.A., a terrorist cell spread far and wide. “But I wanted this to stay covered, so she couldn’t cut it as short as she wanted to.” _Scars_. They’ll remain Bucky’s flaw forever. He treats them like they’re screaming red signs no one can ignore, instead of pale lines that are barely even visible on the skin. Steve is a lot less self-conscious about the operation scars all over his torso. But his don’t have a story to tell. “They know what happened to me, of course they do. But even so, the scar would’ve been difficult to explain.”Steve highly doubts they know the whole story. Even Steve only knows fragmented bits. “You should have seen ‘em all, Steve, you wouldn’t believe how much they grew. I mean hell… Little Yakov, last time I saw him, he was a baby with pudgy, grabby hands. Now he’s an independent nine-year-old with two little brothers and a love for that tablet that I’ll never understand. Wasn’t away from it for five whole minutes. If you drop him off at Stark’s, I think he’ll never come back with us. The six-year-old, Ilya, is so shy. Took him two days to even come up and talk to me voluntarily, without shying away or someone telling him to go ‘ _speak to Yasha_ ’. Yakov is the only one scared of the arm. Ilya asked if I was a cyborg.” A smile tugs on Bucky’s lips. The cyborg thing has apparently not so much annoyed him as charmed him. “I said ‘ _yes’_ and he basically smirked and replied: ‘ _cool’_. As if you see people with metal arms all around. It took a while for him to warm up to me, but then he dragged me out everywhere with him: when he played soccer, he asked me to be the goalie, when he went to the grocery store with his mother.

“Babushka wants me to take you with me, by the way. She’s tired of hearing about you without knowing who you are. That may be Ilya’s fault.” Steve just hums; _go on_. “Well, you remember that time we were Skyping and Ilya came to get me for breakfast? Well, I followed him back in and he scowled at babushka and said ‘ _You didn’t tell me he was Skyping’_ because he doesn’t like being on video. Photos are fine though. And then Anna wanted to know who I was skyping with, and I said your name and babushka smiled and said: ‘ _ah, the Steve I used to hear so much about. You should bring him next year.’_ So, yeah. I think I talked about you too much when we were kids.” Steve smiles happily. “Папа would be there a whole lot, but it’s time that you get your head out of the sand and work out this grudge you two got going.”

“You know I’d love to go with you. I’ve been hearing about these people for over two decades. Just need to get the time off approved,” he replies. “Your da wouldn’t mind? He did kick me out of the house last time I saw him. He’s terrifying.”

“Steve, that was well over ten years ago. Come on. He ain’t even complained about anyone I’ve brought out to meet them anymore,” Bucky amends. “He was just upset. With me mostly. You know that.”

“It still doesn’t sit right with me,” Steve replies, thinking back to the moment. He’d been so paranoid of what George might do, that he’d gone to a nearby park, so he wouldn’t interrupt his mother while decorating the apartment for his birthday party. He had to take a subway there and tried to ignore the way everyone stared at him. Later Bucky brought him both his shoes and his sketchpad, with an extra little treat: a home-baked peanut butter cookie.

“Don’t worry about it. He will be on his best behavior. And so will _you_ ,” Bucky says pointedly. The somberness only barely leaves his face, but at the very least there’s some improvement. Steve looks away from Bucky and over to the corkboard. There’s a wedding invitation tacked up on it, silver lettering and a mostly silver front, except from the words: Peggy & Daniel. Steve can’t actually read it from where he’s sitting, but he’s got the same invitation in one of the many unpacked boxes. He’s yet to RSVP, because he just can’t know if he’ll make it or not. People don’t schedule being killed around things like a wedding party. There is also a letter, paper crinkled and worn, ink bleeding at some places. A letter Steve wrote when Bucky lost the arm, but Steve had to go back to the war. It’s been through a lot, yet still survives. Creases in the paper show were Bucky used to fold it to keep it in his wallet.

“You going?” he vaguely nods towards the invitation. Bucky shrugs.

“Probably. You takin' what’s-his-name?" Somehow, Bucky can’t ever remember the names of the people Steve dates. At least, not that he mentions to Steve anyway. Yet some days, when Steve is talking to Nikolai or Maxim, they’ll ask how X is doing, and that will be the name of his boy- or girlfriend at the time. And they’ll get it right despite Steve never mentioning a name to them. Steve grabs the cup a little tighter, tension whitening out his knuckles. The heat of the freshly brewed coffee burns his palms.

“No, I broke up with him last week,” he says bitterly. “I’m still going though. I just need to figure out if I can find the time off.” If Bucky is upset that Steve didn’t mention his ended relationship, Bucky isn’t showing it. “He had it coming. He was getting too controlling. Every time I got up early for my runs, or got called in to work for a case, he assumed I was cheating on him.” Steve shakes his head. “I couldn’t go out for a drink with the guys without him getting suspicious. If I mentioned Sam, he would get pissed off and start complaining that I am not neat enough.”

“Grant’s a jerk. Good thing you dropped him,” Bucky remarks and scrunches his nose in disgust. Dimka, as if on cue, paddles over to the couch and jumps up on Steve’s lap. Steve pets him absently. “Hey, come on. You’re better off without him. Want to do something? Like bake?” Steve shrugs. He _could_ bake, if Bucky has everything. But he also doesn’t want to stir Dimka too much. The cat’s fallen asleep on Steve’s lap, not something Steve would expect Dimka to do. After all, he hasn’t seen Bucky in two weeks.

“I thought you didn’t know his name?” Steve asks Bucky, before downing the last of his coffee in one go.

“Of course I know their names. I am not stupid. I’ll start calling them by their names once you get serious with them. I did with Peggy... Eventually. You just have a track record with going for the people that will let you down, is all. Don’t want to end up liking a person that’ll break your heart, Steve.” He gets up and clasps a hand on Steve’s shoulder. “Come on. We’re gonna bake muffins. Turn on some music.” He doesn’t give Steve much of a choice, but Steve’s not entirely sure that he wants to have a choice anyway. Especially those first few months, Bucky _hated_ Peggy. Hate is probably a strong word, but he’d tense up whenever she was around or when Steve would mention her; It wasn’t immediately obvious to some people, but Steve never could see past that tension; the clenched jaw, the set of his eyes.

“I really don’t know how to pick people, do I?” Steve asks, somewhat forlorn, but complacently sets Dimka back down on the floor and gets up. Better not keep Bucky waiting too long. Dimka does _not_ seem amused by his living pillow running away, but he curls up on the blanket instead.

“Lovers? No,” Bucky replies. “You do have an excellent track record in friends.” God, he’s missed this playful banter over the past two weeks. Steve finally settles on a song, something with a beat to keep the both of them awake.

“Don’t flatter yourself, Barnes,” he tosses back, walking into the kitchen where Bucky is already laying out the different ingredient bowls, one filled with milk, one with two eggs to keep them from rolling away on their path to freedom. “I didn’t pick you. You glued yourself into my life with superglue.” Which might as well be true. In Steve's memory, it is Bucky being polite and talking to the new kid, then Steve deciding that this is one friend he cannot let go of. Back then all he had was his baby brother, who had been only three weeks old and very prone to fits of crying, which usually caused Steve to walk over to Alexander's room and stick his little hand through the bars of the crib, to comfort the baby. Some days he'd put a bright blue bunny named 'Lee' - one of Steve's favorite teddy bears - in the crib with Alexander. Eventually, that became Alexander’s teddy bear.

“Like you could ever say no to my charming little gap-toothed smile? We were meant to be best friends since day one, pal,” Bucky says, a grin spread out over his face. He's also waving the knife he used to cut butter, which is mildly disconcerting to Steve. Especially since Bucky isn’t all that fond of using blunt butter knives and the one he's holding now is probably still sharp enough to cut through tough food

"You weren't _that_ charming," Steve complains. "You were a little brat. How often did the teacher have to tell you to ' _speak English, James_ ’?” He mimics the teacher's high pitched tone, but can't quite reach it. He doesn't remember a lot of those first years, not much apart from the countless hospital visits at all, but that has always been stuck in Steve's mind. "You know well enough that you only spoke Russian to annoy her."

"And because _you_ liked it," Bucky mutters, a little too silently; as if maybe Steve wasn’t entirely supposed to hear. "I did my best to impress that scrawny kid sitting all alone drawing things a toddler shouldn’t be able to draw. How was I to know we would end up the worst pair of troublemakers Misses Abrams ever had? You weren't innocent either. You used to fake being sick if you didn’t feel like school, you little punk. And then they would call your ma, but she wasn't able to pick you up and your da was deployed at the time and your ma had to care for Alexander and you were a busy toddler. So sometimes she’d ask мама to go pick you up because by then you spent so much time with us anyway. And then you’d come along to pick the rest of us up and you hadn’t been sick at all. You would sit there at our dining table and draw and sing along to the radio with мама, or ask her to teach you more Russian. At least, so she’s told me.”

“ _Да._ Eventually everyone finds out that I’m a troublemaker, Buck. Your ma was just more forgiving of it than most people.” Steve takes over sifting all the flour into a bowl that looks way too small to even fit all that flour while Bucky is mixing the butter until it is soft. Every so often, Bucky will look back at the recipe, written in Winifred Barnes’s fine handwriting, though he has made it countless times and probably knows it by heart by now.

Steve _isn’t_ a kitchen prince. But he bakes when he’s nervous or upset, and he knows how to work an oven, even one as complicated as Bucky’s is. Honestly, there is no reason for _any_ oven to be this complicated. Whatever happened to just a dial for the temperature and the kind of oven? Does it need two fancy LED displays - one of both for the clock - and touch buttons?

“I still don’t know why you’d even want an oven as complicated as this,” Steve says, trying to get his voice loud enough to be audible over the sound of the mixer. Bucky just laughs at him.

Steve scoffs at Bucky’s threatening expression.

“What are you going to do? Blend me to death?” he asks, which he really shouldn’t have done, because Bucky turns on that damned hand mixer and sends the leftover butter which still stuck to the beaters, flying everywhere. Steve gets the worst of it: there is butter on his face, in his hair and on his T-shirt. But Bucky too get some in his hair and some butter even sizzles down the preheated oven.

It doesn’t seem to bother Bucky, who just starts enthusiastically singing along to the music. He sings with a lot more conviction than Steve does, even though both of them can’t sing worth a damn. Steve smiles and joins in. It’s nice to see Bucky relaxed like this.

“What now, Sarge?” Steve asks. It has always mostly been the Commandos, calling Bucky ‘Sarge’ but Steve has picked it up since then, that doesn’t mean it still feels sort of off when actually says to Bucky.

“Just add the sugar to the butter, sweetheart,” he says, with half a smirk on his face and for a moment, Steve’s reminded of a gangly, pimpled 16-year-old version of Bucky, bursting with teenage bravado and that age old, Barnes-patented charm that gets both him, Rebecca and Maxim out of every single argument with their parents. The rest of the family has somewhat less luck. “ _What?_ Too early for sugar puns?” Steve just rolls his eyes as he grabs the sugar and measures out a cup. Bucky has these metal measuring cups, shaped like cooking pots, but with colorful grips. Steve loves them. In the red - though to Steve it looks like a muddy brown - grip of the one cup measurement, there’s a deep imprint of a ridged hand, nearly cutting the silicone to the metal. Bucky’s metal hand. Steve grabs the handle by the imprint when he scoops the sugar out, his hands almost slip, they’re so tiny compared to his. His hands haven’t changed much since he was a kid: he still has long skinny fingers, tendons moving clearly on the back of his hand with each little movement. It used to amaze Steve when he was younger. He could watch them move for hours. Try to capture it on paper and failing again and again until he got it right.

“It’s always too early for sugar puns,” he replies, but checks back on the clock. It’s only 04:15 AM. It’s too early for _any_ kind of pun, really.

“Sure thing, honey,” Bucky continues anyway, because it is Bucky and that’s just what he does when someone tells him he can’t do something. Maybe being around Steve all the time rubbed off on Bucky. Steve pours in the sugar slowly, as Bucky beats it into the butter. The light above the kitchen counter is entirely too bright for this time of night but at the very least, it’s keeping him awake. Keeps his eyes right open.

“Leave the pet names for your sweethearts, Barnes,” Steve replies, but it is jokingly. “They appreciate ‘em more.” Bucky just shakes his head at Steve.

“ _Fine._ Spoilsport,” he replies, somewhat exasperated. “Break an egg in for me.” Steve grabs one of the eggs and breaks it one handedly into the bowl, muscle memory more than conscious decision. Bucky raises an eyebrow at him. “Showoff.” Steve just laughs at that. He’s got experience enough with breaking eggs. In those first few months after he got back, he must have made hundreds of things: cupcakes, muffins, cakes, pies, different types of bread, even pasta. Most of those required at least one egg. Back then he was still living with his ma, who often joked that maybe they should just invest in some hens to give them the eggs, because the guy in the grocery store down the street was really beginning to wonder what they were doing with them.

“Maybe a little.” He adds in the other egg after the other one has mixed in, and then adds the rest of the ingredients. They spoon the batter into brightly colored cupcake liners, to go into the oven for fifteen to twenty minutes. Steve is about to go back to the couch to watch the rest of the movie, when Bucky puts a hand on Steve’s shoulder and pulls him back.

“Come on, _dishes_.” It’s a challenge, trying not to laugh when Bucky pulls out a single, bright yellow latex dishwashing glove to cover his metal arm. Steve lets the sink fill up with steaming water, but turns it down somewhat.

“Don’t laugh,” Bucky says sternly, as he tugs it over the metal. As if ‘ _don’t laugh’_ has ever stopped anyone. Steve does dutifully keep himself from laughing out loud. He just smirks. “Stark’s assured me this thing is waterproof, but I don’t trust it.”

“Okay. You dry ‘em then, I’ll do the washing,” Steve replies, pushing Bucky to the side carefully, but not without some effort. “If you don’t want to wear that thing…” Bucky just shrugs.

“Sure.”

 

 

It doesn’t take them long to finish the dishes, there are barely any there, after all. They have to wait for the muffins to bake, without really anything to do. Which apparently brings out the little kid in Bucky.

“Hey, _Steve_ ,” he says to get Steve’s attention, and then splashes Steve with dishwater. It soaks the top of his shirt. _Oh, this is on_. Steve grins right back at Bucky and takes out the tap, spraying Bucky with water but avoiding the metal arm as much as possible. Even if it is waterproof.

They both get soaked, Steve’s shirt clings to his torso, but Bucky is actually happily smiling and not as gloomy as before. That’s worth soaked clothing.

Bucky is about to launch another counter attack when an incessant bleeping fills the room, Bucky’s pager. Bucky scrambles for it, quick reflexes have him over by the living room table before Steve has even looked up.

“Work,” Bucky says, already taking off his soaked shirt and disappearing into his bedroom to get clean clothes and that strange sort of sleeve Stark made to get the arm to look human. “Sorry, Steve. Duty calls.” Steve’s phone starts to ring too and while he usually won’t mind a call from Sam Wilson, the timing is ominous.

“Good morning, Sam,” Steve says as he answers the call with his phone stuck between his ear and his shoulder as he stacks away the bowls they have used.

“Wow, you sound awake for four AM," Sam grunts, obviously less awake. “Attempted triple homicide. How soon can you get down to Caroll Park?” Steve looks up at Bucky, who is lacing up his high rise biker boots.   Caroll Park isn’t that far off. A minute or five on his bike. But the muffins will need another minute in the oven and it is not like the likely victim will run off.

“Attempted?” he just asks, raising his eyebrows. “What happened?”

“Attempted,” Sam repeats. “Only one died. Paramedics are working on the two others right now. But it’s looking good for them.” Steve can hear the wail of sirens in the background. Sam must already be at the scene. “It’s our guy.” With the bowls stacked away, Steve grabs the muffins out of the oven. They’re a little overdone, but not badly. They would have been better with maybe a minute less in the oven.

“Sam, I’ll be there as soon as I can. Buck, there’s been a murder,” Steve says, head angled as far away from the phone as he can. “I’ve got to go too.”

“’s okay. Just let me feed Dimka and put those muffins away and I’ll be right out with you. You want some clothes? Or are you going to go dressed like that?” Bucky replies amusedly. He has a point. “Don’t worry, I got some time. They know I gotta walk there.” He doesn’t seem all too worried that he won’t be at work in time.

“You can take my bike,” Steve suggest, “just drop me off at Caroll Park first. And if I could borrow some clothes, that’d be great.”

“Steve, you realize I’m still on the phone, right?” Sam asks and Steve hastily puts the muffins down on the counter.

“… Yeah. I totally did. I’ll be there soon, okay?” The last thing Steve hears before the line dies is Sam’s laughter. He is a little bit of an idiot. “Never forget you are on the phone with somebody. Never.” Bucky’s laugh echoes through the apartment, and Steve figures that that was worth it, just to hear that laugh. “Do you even have any pants big enough to fit me?” Dimka is staring up at Steve from halfway across the room, his eyes are little dots of light. Steve gets the hint: Dimka needs to be fed. Steve drops the muffins on the stove and, opens the cupboard above the fridge to grab a can of cat food. Not the expensive kind - that is only for special occasions - but the generic store brand. Dimka doesn’t seem to mind.

“Steve, your legs aren’t _that_ massive. You can fit most of my clothes without issue,” Bucky complains as he comes back with a small stack of clothes. “Can’t give you a neat shirt though. They’re in my suitcase somewhere.” Steve ducks into the small bathroom to change but leaves the door on a crack.

“That’s okay. You haven’t unpacked?” he asks. The navy Henley Bucky has picked out is an old favorite of Bucky’s, Steve’s seen him wear it hundreds of times and it vaguely smells of that cologne Bucky wears all the damn time, like it is a good luck charm. Steve slips the shirt over his head and sniffs. It’ll take some time before he gets used to the scent being there, but he doesn’t mind that. He folds up his sleep shirt and puts it neatly on a pile with his shorts

“No, didn’t wanna. My bag’s a _mess_ ,” Bucky calls back. “It will get unpacked. Eventually.” When Steve grabs the pair of jeans, Bucky’s dog tags fall out and Steve automatically reaches to grab them but hits his chin on one of the sinks, hard. _Ow_. Apparently he makes enough noise to get Bucky worried – he peeks in through the crack. “You okay in there?” Steve shrugs and hooks his fingers around the ball-and-chain-cord to pull the dogtags up with him.

“I’m fine,” Steve grunts before he spits a small clod of blood into the sink. “You left these in your pants, they fell out and when I tried to pick them up I had an encounter with your poor sink. Just bit the inside of my mouth.” It stings a little, but nothing he can’t deal with. When he looks back, Bucky is smiling.

“I’d forgotten I’d left them in those jeans.” Bucky takes the tags from him and runs a finger along the curve one has from being bent when they – Steve and the rest of the commandos - came to rescue him. “You mean to tell me you actually wear those America boxers the guys gave ya?” Bucky’s looking distinctly lower than Steve’s face.

“They’re comfortable," Steve mutters defensively as he pulls on the jeans, "and my face is _up here_. Eyes front, soldier.” Bucky’s eyes drag up slowly back towards Steve’s face, a little too slowly for Steve’s liking, but he’s not going to give Bucky the satisfaction of actually saying something about it.

“I was looking at those ridiculous stars on your boxers,” he replies somewhat smug. “Come on. You ready to go?” These boxers _were_ a birthday gift from the commandos, meant as a play on their old nickname for him: ‘ _Captain America_ ’ because he was – and still is – ‘ _too naïve for his own good and actually believes in those damn ideals’_.

“If you think they’re so ridiculous, maybe you shouldn’t’ve influenced the guys to actually get them for me,” Steve teases and makes a mental note to wear the star spangled boxers more often from now on. They really are comfortable.

“How was I supposed to know you’d like them?” Bucky replies, a scowl on his face. He’s just teasing, sounds way too amused to be grumpy about it. “You used to have better taste.” He heads out of the bathroom, Steve following right on his trail.

“Must be your bad influence,” Steve replies, because he just can’t help himself. “I’m just gonna grab my shoes at my apartment. Let Thor know…” Thor. A complication Steve hadn’t counted on. He doesn’t really want to wake Thor up for this, doesn’t want him to feel like he is being kicked out of the apartment before dawn.

Thor is still asleep when Steve sneaks into the apartment, he is almost toppled out of the couch, one of his arms resting on the coffee table, his blonde hair hanging like a curtain over the edge of the couch. Steve manages not to wake him up, as he tiptoes in and out of his bedroom, barely avoiding the screwdriver on his way back.


	2. IV, V, VI

After a stop at Nikolai and Elena’s – two of Bucky’s siblings - small bakery/coffee shop to fill up on coffee, Steve pulls up to the entrance of the park, driving all the way to the police tape. Bucky’s arms are still clenched tight around Steve’s waist. Driving with Bucky as a passenger has always been easier than with others; Bucky leans with him when he’s supposed to, he doesn’t hang on too loosely because it’s awkward or too tightly out of fear. He does draw out the daredevil in Steve, who then tends to speed and cut corners somewhat too short, to feel the thrill of adrenaline and feel Bucky shake with laughter. Some people turn their heads, ready to come and usher Steve away, not realizing it is detective Rogers. He gets off the bike and has just taken off his helmet when a young uniformed officer comes over. Officer Wilkins has barely been part of the force for a month but he’s been impressing his superiors all along. Steve doesn’t doubt he will make a promotion soon.

“Pardon me, sirs,” Wilkins says. “But this is a crime scene, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” Bucky raises his helmet's visor, staring at Steve with that smug 'I told you so' look on his face. Steve just scowls right back as he takes his travel cup from the left cup holder on his handlebars.

“See? I told you they’d think we’re a pair of punks,” Bucky complains. “But you had to go drive right up. I could have dropped you off anywhere."

“Just a minute, Officer Wilkins,” Steve replies before he reaches into his coat pocket to grab his badge. “Gotta give ‘em something to talk about Buck. You go save some lives. Tell ma I said ‘ _hi_ ’.” Bucky scoots to the front of the bike and kicks it back to life, engine complaining loudly.

“See ya later, Steve,” he says, then starts backing out of the park, slow at first, but once he is turned, he speeds to a more considerable speed.

“ _And don’t crash my bike_!” Steve calls after him, not sure if Bucky can hear him. Bucky just flips Steve off in a reply, which would worry Steve a _lot_ more if he didn’t know Bucky is a great driver.

With Bucky gone, he turns his attention on a very annoyed looking officer Wilkins. “I’m Detective Rogers? I’m here for the body that was found?” The officer nods and raises the tape for Steve to pass under to the others. One of both paramedic teams is still working on one of the victims, the other victim seems to have been rushed to the hospital already. Sam and Clint are standing by the fountain watching Bruce Banner, their resident medical examiner talking animatedly. Bruce is squatted down next to a dead body but stares up at Sam and Clint as he speaks. Natasha is off in the distance, who is talking to a young woman who is sitting on a park bench, shock blanket wrapped tightly around her. Steve’s probably best not to interrupt that one, he’s hopeless when it comes to consoling people

“Oh, hey look who decided to show up,” Clint says once Steve reaches them. “I thought you live closest to the park? Late night?” The suspicious little eyebrow waggle is a little too much for Steve to deal with right now.

“Not that kind of late night. Buck and I made blueberry muffins,” Steve acknowledges, but he has to hide another yawn. More coffee, that’s what he needs. Or a straight shot of caffeine while he’s at it. “What’re we looking at, Bruce?” Bruce looks up from the body, vaguely in Steve’s direction but barely straight at him. No one apparently looks their best when called in on a Sunday morning, not even Doctor Banner. He actually looks worse than Steve does and isn’t even a bit happy about being here at all. No one does.

“Same story as the last guy. From what I can tell, two gunshot wounds. One through and through, the second bullet seems to have lodged itself into his brain,” he says. “I’ll be able to tell you more after I’ve performed the autopsy, but if the first one didn’t kill him, the bullet through the brain did.”

“That’s what, three murders in two months? He’s speeding up,” Steve mutters. The victims can’t be further apart: a young university student drowning in debt and selling coke out of his dormroom, a forty-year-old guy in the middle of a mid-life crisis and a beloved community priest. Now these three. “Do we have the bullets that went through?”

“Yeah,” Sam replies. “They’re already on their way to the lab, to run against the database but I doubt there’ll be a match except to the first slugs.”

“The angle of these wounds is off. Either this guy was tall, or he took his shot from an elevated area. I guess one of the apartment buildings by the edge,” Bruce says, frowning down at the wounds. His fingers indicate the positions of the wounds. The difference between entry and exit is only about an inch or two. The apartment buildings are too far away for just any person to hit it.

“You need experience to nail that shot,” Sam notes, staring down at the body now. The summer heat is starting to kick in, the sun making its first appearance over the horizon. “Whoever he is, he’s got experience. Military background maybe?”

“Worth looking into. Did we run the partial print on the first victim against the military database?” Clint asks, his attention drawn by Natasha walking back towards them. She’s speaking on the phone; speech so rapid Steve has trouble even determining whether it’s English or not. Given Natasha though, it might as well be Russian. Actually it probably _is_ Russian. She did mention that she needed to gather some info on the bullets used in the previous murders and the bullets had been Soviet made.

“No, not yet,” Steve says, while picking his phone from his pocket. “I’ll let the lab know they should.” The lab consists of exactly three people: Jane Forster, Darcy Lewis and Ian Boothby. They get swamped easily, but they somehow manage to stay on top of things - opinions on how differ greatly; while Steve thinks they never actually end up leaving the lab and save up mountains of overtime, Clint is convinced they’ve got clones running around doing their work for them. Darcy is the easiest to reach; Jane gets caught up in her work and won’t hear her phone, Ian is usually at least accompanying her, running the scans and checking results. Plus, his phone got smashed a week ago and he still hasn’t gotten a new one. Darcy, however, is never without her phone.

“Darcy Lewis,” a cheerful voice says after the second ring. There’s rock music in the background, which isn’t allowed in the lab but no one actually bothers to stick to the rules.

“Darcy! I need a favor.” He can bribe her with muffins if she gets annoyed, right? Bucky won’t mind if Steve uses their fresh muffins for bribes.

“I’ll need more coffee.” Darcy always manages to sound like she’s about to hate what she needs to do - and maybe she even does - but she’ll do it anyway. “You do know that we’ve got piles of work, right?” She is guilt tripping him. It usually works, when he is in a better mood. When he’s had more sleep.

“ _I know_ , Darcy, but there are donuts in it for you if you want,” Steve says. “You just gotta run that partial we found on Kyle Terry against the military database.”

“I’ll get back to you when I get a result. Don’t forget about the sprinkles. And green icing!” Darcy says just before she ends the call. Steve can hear the smile in her voice. He however has no idea where he is supposed to get donuts with green icing _and_ sprinkles. Maybe Nikolai has some.

Bruce is stuffing the body in a body bag with Clint’s help, Sam and Natasha standing a couple of meter further, quietly talking among themselves. There’s nothing more to do at the scene: photos have been taken, evidence photographed and bagged for transport back to the lab. Nothing much for Steve to do. The partial is a long shot, but it’s the only solid piece of evidence they’ve got. Whoever the killer is, he’s so far been meticulous enough to leave no prints.

The MO changes with every murder. First victim, Kyle Terry, had been shot point blank, barrel of the gun pressed against the guy’s forehead; in all aspects a personal kill. It would allow him to watch the life drain from Kyle’s eyes. Second victim, the priest, had been stabbed: one clean wound straight through the heart. Like he was meant to die instantly. And now _this_. The only way they even know that they have all been killed by the same killer, are the numbers on the victims’ necks: sloppy but deep lines displaying Roman numerals. They’re small, no bigger than a coin. It took them a while to even realize these are Roman numerals and not just some kind of grid.

Steve watches the last ambulance drive away from the park, sirens blaring. A chalk outline shows where the first two victims lay, the place where the only casualty had lain only marked by bloody dirt.

“Who are the victims?” he asks Clint, before he takes another sip of his coffee. Clint slumps against the tree next to them and stifles a yawn. Steve offers him the travel mug without thinking. “You look like you need it.” Clint takes the cup from him and takes a long sip, practically draining it before he hands it back to Steve. Judging by the sloshing, there’s barely any coffee left.

“Thanks. Darren Mills is the dead guy. Was in his low forties, worked tech support. The two taken to the hospital are Lauren Anderson, twenty-three and Mike Thompson, twenty-six. Thompson moved to the US only three days ago.” _Welcome to the states, Pal_. “From what Anderson told us before she passed out, she was in and out of consciousness a lot and never saw the shooter brand her neck. They were on their morning run.” Clint makes a face like he’s just smelled the worst thing in the world, nose all scrunched up; he says the words ‘ _morning run’_ like they’re trying to kill him. “This early?”

“Anderson was a nurse,” Natasha says, joining them out of the blue. It makes Steve jump a little, when she just appears out of nowhere. Coffee doesn’t do much for his nerves. “She was supposed to start her shift at six AM.” She looks up to Clint, squinting against the sun finally coming up over the horizon proper. “Mornings are the best time to run.”

“You’ll find me dozing off in my bed at any time before seven AM,” Clint grunts. “Best time to run or not.”

“Did they take her to the hospital she works at?” Steve asks. “Or do we need to alert them?” The people she works with wouldn’t be happy with the paramedics if they did bring her to another hospital, he’s seen that annoyance up close and it is honestly rather frightening.

“They took her to Brooklyn Health Center, where she works,” Clint replies, then adds: “I don’t think the killer counted on the joggers being there.”

“Why?” Sam asks.

“Because he didn’t kill them. He shot and marked them, but he didn’t shoot them in a vital place, like the head or heart. He shot them in the leg, even _we_ have had a few of those and we’re still standing.” Steve nods vaguely at Clint. It sounds about right. Why else would he leave them alive?

“Victims of opportunity then?” he asks. “But why not wait until they ran past and shoot then? Why brand them?” Natasha’s nodding slowly, pensively.

“Might be,” she muses. “He could have run out of time. Sun was about to come up. If he didn’t want to be seen, he might have made a rush job out of this one. Maybe he made a mistake somewhere. Clint and I will go back to the precinct and call Mills’s relatives. You and Sam head to the hospital.” It doesn’t surprise Steve. He’s only known Natasha for a year or two, ever since he’s begun to work at the PD. She has never been at the hospital, unless she really _had_ to and even then she had been fidgety and nervous. So, she prefers Steve and Sam go to the hospitals, if they can. Steve doesn’t mind, he’s grown up in and around Brooklyn Health Center, it is like a second home to him. So hospitals don’t freak him out so much anymore. The only downside is that most of the older nurses and doctors there have known him - and seen him regularly - ever since he was still in diapers. They know too many embarrassing stories about him. _Way_ too many.

“Got it. See you back there. Call if you find something out.”

 

 

 

It is surprisingly busy on the streets for barely five AM and now Steve can’t cut ahead of traffic, he is getting annoyed though he isn’t the one driving. There’s no music, because they are supposed to hear the dispatch over the radio. And music has proven to be too distracting anyway. The car ride is oddly silent, Sam smug right up until they’re ten minutes away from the hospital and blurts out:

“You gonna tell me what that on the phone was?”

"Nothing, Sam," Steve complains, rapping his fingers against the dashboard slowly. They're going down the street at a snail’s pace, it sets Steve’s teeth on edge. Maybe they would get there faster if they ran, even. “I didn't realize you were still on the phone." Sam doesn’t look back at Steve, eyes focused on the road.

“You feel like you have to apologize for it," he states. "What kind of nothing has you needing clothes?" Steve groans.

“Did you want me to show up in pajamas?” he asks. “It would have saved me a hassle.” Sam actually laughs at that. Steve wouldn’t have minded it so much.

“Now that would’ve been a sight,” he says, then more hesitantly. “But if you don’t want to talk about it. Then at least talk about something else because if I don’t, I’ll end up turning on the sirens to cut ahead of this.” That doesn’t sound like too bad an idea, if Steve has to be honest. At least then they will make some time.

“It isn’t as interesting as you believe it is,” he says. “We just sat up and talked. Baked cupcakes. You know, the usual.” He can't honestly imagine he hasn't told Sam about Bucky before, but he mustn’t have because otherwise Sam would know that four AM phone calls and visits aren't uncommon for them. It's a second nature, stemming from army days and nightmare nights. Its start? _January eighteenth, 2000_. When Sarah Rogers sat her two sons down after dinner and told them that their father had died.

"Only you could have a habit like that and call it ‘ _the usual’_. You do know that people need sleep right?” Sam looks over at Steve, eyebrows raised but there’s a glint in his eye. “It does explain why you look like you live on coffee."

“I do live on coffee,” Steve agrees. “And I try to sleep. But we both get nightmares and sometimes sleep doesn’t matter that much.” Steve actually changed the ringtone on his mobile, set it to one of the loudest songs he could find, so he won’t sleep through Bucky’s calls. He doesn’t bother telling Sam that, though. He already seems worried about it. “Besides, without coffee, half the police force wouldn’t show up and you know it. I’m not the only one.”

“No need to defend yourself, man,” Sam replies, half smiling. “I get it. I _do_.” Sam _does_ get it; he’s seen this kind of thing often enough at the VA. The only time Steve had talked to Bucky about the VA had been a failure and an epic one at that. ‘ _You think I can’t take care of myself?! I don’t_ need _some stranger to tell me how I’m doing, Steve. I don’t need to share with somebody who can barely remember my name. I got you and I got my family. That’s enough.’_ The outburst ended the life of Bucky's favorite mug, a white mug with “ _Not all superheroes wear capes”_ in a black typewriter font.

“I’m not defending myself,” Steve mutters, actually on the defense now. “I spent the rest of the day moving in. Why did I choose that apartment building again?” Sam laughs.

“Because if you want to move into a house, you’ll have to sell both kidneys and part of your liver before you can afford it,” he replies. “Maybe even a lung. The building can’t be that bad. You may have your aesthetics, but even you wouldn’t move into a dump.” Steve’s second choice _had_ been a rather worn building with barely any decent heating and single glass. However, it was cheap and had a very nice layout, the walls bare brick and the flooring a warm wood.

“True,” Steve replies. “Just the upstairs neighbor’s already out to ruin my first night of decent sleep.” He sighs. “Tomorrow should be better. A _lot_ of stuff left to unpack though.”

“At least you’ve got a couple of strings to pull with the PD,” Sam says. “They’ll show up if you file a complaint. If you need help unpacking...” Steve shakes his head.

“Bucky’s helping later on. But any help is appreciated.”

Traffic finally frees up and they make it to the hospital. The parking lot is surprisingly empty; Sundays are usually busier than this. His ma used to do double shifts on Sundays, and then came home looking more tired than ever before. She’d sleep from the moment she got home to the moment she had to pick her sons up from school. Sam parks the car a little way from the entrance near the back of the parking lot. There’s only one other person on the lot right now, a nurse smoking a cigarette and staring off into the distance. She does smile at them when they pass, that same, tired ‘ _I could sleep for days if you let me but I need to be civil and it’s unfair_ ’ kind of smile, that probably works best on people that haven’t lived through life with that exact smile plastered on their mother’s face all the time. Steve makes it a point to smile back at her, though his own smile is probably as worn as the nurse’s is.

 

The slowness of the day is even more apparent inside the hospital. Several nurses are milling by the nurse’s station, the surgery board in the corner is empty but for two surgeries hours and several OR’s apart. Steve knows better than to mention that it is quiet, someone might kill him for jinxing it. Sarah Rogers is sitting at the nurse’s station, pouring over the NY Times crossword puzzle and biting the cap of her pen in concentration. She’d tap Steve and his brother Alexander on the wrists for biting pen caps, saying it’s a bad habit and they’ll ruin their teeth but she never managed not to kick the habit herself. Steve still finds himself absently biting on them, then spitting them out when he realizes he’s doing it.

“Hey ma,” Steve says trying to sound more cheerful than he feels. He won’t be able to fool her, never been able to fool her, but it is worth a go. His ma’s eyes snap up from her crossword, right up at Steve and Sam, assessing them.

“Steve,” she replies, a warm smile spreading out over her face. “What’re you doing here this early?” She checks her watch absently before nodding to herself, as if she’s figured it all out before they can even reply. “Oh, you’re here for the victims.”

“Yeah,” Steve says. “How are they?” His ma looks conflicted.

“Thompson is still being operated on and will be for another hour or so... but Lauren is out of surgery,” she says pensively, pausing for a moment. “She’s still in recovery... I hate to ask, but we haven’t been able to track down Thompson’s next-of-kin yet.” The meaningful look she casts at Steve and Sam says enough. The ‘ _you can do something, right?_ ’-look.

“I’ll give Tony a call, see what he can do,” Sam promises, then steps away some to do exactly that.

Pepper is out of town and will be for another week or so, which undoubtedly means that Tony is still awake right now. Usually, his sleeping pattern returns to normal a couple of days before Pepper gets back, so he can keep up appearances. But for now, Tony is living on caffeine and working the nights away, whether at home or at the station. It means that they are perpetually out of coffee, but Tony sometimes buys them all take-away Starbucks. It is a pretty decent deal.

“Thanks, Sam,” Sarah replies, before Sam’s out of reach. Sam just gives her a thumbs up, already talking to Tony. Some days, Steve is convinced that Sam and his mother get along better than Steve and his mother do.

“Could we talk to Lauren, or isn’t she conscious yet?” Steve asks. Sam comes back before Sarah even has the chance to answer.

“Sarah? This is the phone number for Mike’s sister, Leah. She is his only relative in the city right now. Number below that is for his parents, if the sister doesn’t pick up. But they’re in the United Kingdom.” Sam turns to Steve. “We owe Tony some Starbucks.” Steve raises an eyebrow. Tony’s Starbucks orders are complicated enough to be longer than most of Steve's grocery lists. "I've got his order." He holds up another piece of paper. Sarah thanks Sam, then says:

“You know, Lauren isn’t all that social. Doesn’t talk to everyone, but she has a few very good friends among the staff. She’s a hard worker. Is always kind. Never got into trouble with anyone at work. Even the most difficult patients, she’d treat with kindness and patience. Patients that would make the most patient people tear their hair out. She would’ve been able to make _you_ smile, and you know how much of an issue that was when you were a toddler.” Steve chuckles. His ma used to take photos in the hospital, especially when he was doing bad. A way for both her and Steve’s father to remember Steve and later to tell Alexander all about him. None of it proved necessary, so now Steve has more childhood pictures than the average adult does. And more miserable ones too. The most memorable of those photos? One with a two-and-a-half-year-old Steve, clutching the railing of his hospital crib with one hand and in the other, the ear of a filthy white rabbit. Toddler! Steve is red faced and screaming uncontrollably as his father is hunched in front of the crib, two big hands reaching out to Steve to pick him up. While there isn’t a lot of other photographic evidence of it – usually they were too busy trying to console him to take a picture - he used to be like that a lot when he was a toddler. He missed a _lot_ of class that year, stuck in hospital.

“Gotta be one hell of a nurse to do that,” Steve says. “Has she been working here long?”

“Since last year,” Sarah replies. “She started working here... last February, I believe. I’ll get James to take you to her.” Sarah picks up her pen and twirls it between middle and ring finger. Though Steve’s father is long since dead, Steve’s mother still wears the gold band around her finger. A permanent pale line hidden underneath it. “Excuse me,” she adds when a young blonde woman walks up to the nurse’s station, clearly shaken.

“So. A nurse whom no one argued with and her boyfriend who hasn’t been in the states long enough to make enemies.” Sam shakes his head. “Maybe the dead guy had a connection to one of the others?” It’s a resigned, mock hope he speaks with. There’s no reason for there to be any connection now.

“Maybe,” Steve agrees, and crosses his arms. “Let’s hope so.”

Bucky walks towards them five minutes later, still dressed in his green operation scrubs. He seems to have missed a small dark spot by the waistband of the pants that looks a suspicious lot like blood. The sleeve Bucky has stuffed over the arm still throws Steve off. It looks _too_ normal. Not what he’s used to anymore.

“Hope you two don’t mind the stairs,” Bucky says and motions them forwards. Steve’s already moving before Bucky even motions them, Sam somewhat more hesitant. Only following when Steve moves.

“How far are we going?” Sam asks, quickly walking in check with Steve and Bucky.

“Third floor,” Bucky replies, as he points to the left. “There’s the elevator, if you want, but I prefer to go by stairs if it is all the same to you.” Neither Steve nor Sam protests that, so they go up to the stairwell.

“How is she?” Sam asks to break the silence that hangs between them.

“About as well as can be expected. She’s refused to get any sedation after the surgery, so she must be in a lot of pain,” Bucky replies, the vague almost-anger clear in his voice. “She’s avoiding anything with a reflection. Those numbers will be scars.” It can’t be easy, seeing those numbers carved into the skin. “Don’t push her too far. She’s been through enough already.”

“We won’t harm her intentionally,” Steve assures Bucky, but it doesn’t seem entirely _too_ assuring. Once they get to the third floor, they only have a short little walk to the room.

Considering Lauren’s just been shot through the leg, the young woman is very... bright. She smiles right at them, when they walk in. There’s already a whole row of cards in the room, each of them littered with dozens of names. Get well cards from all different floors of the hospital. The window is opened, letting every stray bit of wind in, even so it is pretty hot in the room. She’s calm, one of her legs raised up on a pillow, thickly bandaged.

“Are you the police detectives?” Lauren asks. She doesn’t seem too worn from the anesthesia, no matter what Bucky might think they’ll do.

“We are,” Sam says. “How are you feeling?” He sits himself down on the empty chair next to the bed. The plastic squeaks slightly when he does. They’re old chairs, been there for _years_ and they’ve been squeaking since day one.

“Okay, considering,” she allows. “My leg hurts a little. _Nothing I can’t handle_. I won’t be walking out of here soon. But I’ll live. Maybe I’ll let myself be taken care of, once in a while.”

“I think the whole hospital is rooting for you,” Steve replies with a smile as he settles back against the small cabinet against the wall. He’s always trying to make himself appear smaller, less tall less bulky. “That much positive energy is bound to help. I hate to have to ask... but can you tell us what happened this morning?” The smile on Lauren’s face waters down a lot. She stares off in the distance. Unsure of what to say or what to do.

“I was on my daily run with Mike,” she starts to say. “I run every morning at this hour. I like the calm. Every morning, Mr. Mills is there as well. When I never saw him, I didn't think much about it. He changes routes sometimes, you know? But then we ran past the clearing and... I saw him fall back. Mike and I, we stopped at once to see if we could do something. I thought he was having a heart attack or something... the guy isn’t that old, but we’ve seen younger people have heart attacks. I didn’t think too much of it. Then I saw the wound. And then we got shot. I.." Lauren has to stop and look away.

“Don’t rush it,” Sam advises, tone as gentle as Steve’s ever heard him. The Lord sure gave Sam too much patience. Steve can take a lot, but he’s always been particularly bad at this part. “Take your time.” Lauren closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. There is no shaking. No shock. More like she needs to clear her head. It is somewhat odd, but maybe the shock just hasn’t set in yet. Bucky glares at them from the edge of the room.

“I think the shot came from the apartment building across the street.” Lauren hesitates, unsure.

“Why do you say that?” Steve asks, plainly avoiding Bucky’s glares. Still, he attempts to be kind as he can be. Bucky can punch him for it later, even if he’d rather not with the metal arm. A cast really wouldn’t suit him.

“The way he fell. Like someone knocked into him from the side and sent him flying off.” She holds her arm up by way of explaining, then lets it fall away towards her knees, knuckles thudding vaguely against her thigh. Only a small distance from the bandage but if it hurts, she doesn’t show it. “The both of us ran that path every morning. Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, pouring rain, hail, thunder, snow. It didn’t matter. He never stopped running.” Unfortunately, the same applies to the killer and Steve is getting tired of it. Where is Sherlock Holmes when you need him? Maybe he is supposed to be Holmes. Or Watson. “That’s all I remember, sorry.”

“You just focus on getting better. If anything comes back, give us a call.” He hands her his card, the new plastic laminate things the station made everyone get. Steve doesn’t mind that there are these cards, it still feels somewhat weird to have glossed cards that spell out ‘Detective Steven G. Rogers, New York homicide,’ with his phone number. It’s nice of course, to be able to just show that card around, and not always have to write down the number of the station, but it is so odd at the same time.

“I will,” she promises but her words come out wrong, distorted. Whatever little effect the anesthetic used in the operation, must have worn off completely now, the pain of the gunshot only now settling in completely. “I’ll be chained to the bed if I so much as try to get out of bed before I am better.” Bucky smiles at Lauren, all warm and polite. Steve fears for the guy who tried to kill this poor nurse; the bundled anger from all the staff might be enough to make a trained assassin run in fear.

“Damn straight, you will be,” Bucky says. “We’ll get out the restraints if we have to. You and Mike aren’t going anywhere until you get the all clear.” At the sound of his name, Lauren perks up a little.

“Who is operating on him?”

“Miles, with Rogers assisting.” With a quick glance to Steve he adds: “Well, the _other_ Rogers. The usual crowd apart from that, and there is that new anesthesiologist... what’s her name? Brenners? They’ll take him here after for recovery. I can promise you that.” Promises are scarce in a hospital room and more often than not, they aren’t kept.

“Good.” Steve smiles at her. Sam gets up from the chair and it squeaks again in protest.

By the time Bucky gets out of the room, Steve and Sam are already at the stairwell.

“Hey! Steve, hold up a minute!” Steve turns towards Bucky, Sam turning at the same time and looking somewhat confused. “Catch!” Bucky throws the motorcycle key; Steve plucks it out of the air seconds before it hits him in the face.

“How will you get home?” Steve asks and starts tossing it up and down.

“I’ve got my workout gear in my locker. I’ll run. It is not _that_ far,” Bucky says. “Go, cap, find that fucker who put Lauren down.” Steve’s heart sinks at the dark look on Bucky’s face. It’s positively _homicidal_. Not a look Steve’s seen often, usually only reserved for the people that tortured him, the people they fought on the front lines.

“We’ll do our best, Buck,” Steve promises weakly. “We won’t let him get away. Not if I have any say in it.” Maybe it is the branding that has irked Bucky out this much. Or he and Lauren are closer than Bucky has ever let on to Steve. Bucky nods once.

“Good. Good,” he says rapidly, more to himself than to Steve, before he disappears back into Lauren’s room.

 

Sam doesn’t say anything until they’re in the elevator, going back down to the first floor. There is only two other people in the elevator: a man with a toddler in a stroller. The toddler is sound asleep, a little lion teddy standing guard at the back of the stroller.

“For a doctor, that guy sure is a reckless driver,” Sam notes, when the doors are close and on the way down to the main floor. “Isn’t he supposed to know better?”

“He isn’t that reckless,” Steve says. “Not usually. I’ll bet he drove three miles under the speed limit the whole way over here and stopped at every stop sign. I was just teasing him a little.” He can’t kid himself, he _knows_ that Bucky drives more recklessly when Steve’s around, the same way Steve does. It is just what they bring out in each other.

Back in their army days, the missions they’d get hurt on were the ones they both went on. If it was only Steve or only Bucky, they would get back in one piece but together? Not a chance. “ _Stock up on supplies, Morita,”_ Steve had overheard Dugan say one time, “ _it’s a C &S.”_ When Steve had asked what they meant, he’d laughed and said. “ _Cap and Sarge. We’ll be needing to patch either of you up sooner or later_.” He’d been right of course. Bucky went back with a nasty looking cut on his left arm, and Steve with bloodstains on his shirt from where he had dragged Bucky away to the relative safety of a foxhole.

Sam just shakes his head at Steve. “Just like you, to go tease the guy riding your bike. He coulda crashed it, you know.”

“Nah, he wouldn’t have,” Steve replies. “He knows I love that thing.” And if Bucky doesn’t know, then he doesn’t know Steve as well as he thinks he does. Because apart from Bucky and Steve, no one has driven that bike. Bucky has made every repair it has ever needed and Steve has repainted it a handful of times, up till the stars and stripes it has now. Those may have been the result of a bet, but he's grown fond of them. “I'm a lot more reckless than he is.”

“I'm not even surprised anymore,” Sam says. “You are worse than Riley and his recklessness got his ass shot out of the damn sky and stuck in a wheelchair.” Sam doesn't really look straight at Steve but off to the side, vaguely at the direction of the elevator buttons. The other guy in the elevator seems to really doubt his decision to not take the stairs down right about now. The toddler wakes slowly, stretching and wiping his eyes. He grabs for the little lion.

“Did Riley find a place to live yet?” Steve asks.

“No,” Sam replies. “He wants to move out as soon as possible. You know him, he doesn’t want to be a bother. But it is not easy to find wheelchair friendly apartments. Especially not affordable ones in the New York area. He wants to stay close to his job and the VA, and his mom.” Steve hums.

“I think there was an apartment, coupl’a blocks down from the PD. Ground floor, no stairs... They allow service dogs,” Steve says. “Maybe that’s something for him. I dunno about the rent, but it can’t have been too much. It was on my shortlist.” Pretty high, even. Sam looks at Steve, an eyebrow raised.

"Why didn't you pick it?" Sam asks as he fidgets with the cuff of his leather jacket. Steve shrugs.

"I just liked my apartment better. You know, the other one's first floor so it doesn't have as much of a view as this one. It's too big, too. Two bedrooms," he replies, focusing his attention on the elevator buttons, only one of them dimly lit. "I wouldn't know what to do with all that space." It is the lamest excuse he can think of, but it is an excuse. And it isn't a total lie. The apartment wasn't up to scratch because well, it's far from Bucky. They've always lived across the street from each other. Practically shared a sleeping bag at times. Steve needs to be able to only take five minutes to go over to his friend’s house if he's having a rough night. He doesn't know what he'll do with himself if he has to race across town for fifteen minutes before he can go and help Buck relax. It's a decision heavily influenced by Bucky being in Russia at the time Steve had to choose. Steve would have waited, but a bit like Riley, he didn't want to have to bunk down with Alexander for too long.

"The space is an issue, huh?" Sam doesn't buy it. Not for a minute. He looks _way_ too smug. "Really?"

" _Sam_ ," Steve says. "We're talking about apartments for Riley. It would be great for him and Harvey. Harvey can even run around a little. That's how big it is. _Okay_?" Sam chuckles.

"Sure. Give me the address later and I'll give it to him. I'm sure he appreciates the offer," Sam replies happily. "If it isn't rented out by now."

The elevator stops at the first floor and slides open to a flurry of activity. There's doctors shouting and people crying, alarms going off all around. When they get out of the elevator, a man hastily shoves Steve to the side, muttering an apology he doesn't really mean.

There's a familiarity there, as Steve dodges stretchers and nurses. " _Traffic accident, six wounded. Ambulance is on its way back,_ " Sarah says to a very confused looking Alexander Rogers. "You've got OR 1 through 3 clear. Head trauma..." Steve neglects saying goodbye to them, as he makes his way back towards the bike. With all its stars and stripes along the hood, it is easy enough to find among the two other bikes that stand in the lot, looking bleak in comparison. Sam's standing by the back of the bike, frowning down at it as if it has insulted him.

"How about we stop somewhere to grab coffee first?" he asks. "Starbucks will be too busy by now though." "Just follow me, I know just the place to stop," Steve says. Elena and Nikolai's won't be too busy, it is a small 24-hour coffee shop nestled in between an even smaller grocery store and a dive bar, in a small side street. Not a lot of people know it has better coffee than Starbucks does, and Steve is eternally grateful for that because if he had to wait for coffee every morning.

 

The bike ride is exhilarating to Steve, even if he is in uniform now and has to keep to the rules. Sam drives behind him too, which would make things a bit awkward if he would speed. Although neither of them is equipped with the right equipment to write tickets. still, Steve takes the corners a little too harshly and _almost_ runs a red light. _Almost_. The engine beneath him rumbles soothingly, a harsh contest with Steve's heartbeat thudding harder than it should. There are only three people waiting in line when Sam and Steve walk into the bakery. Apart from them, there is an old lady with a cup of coffee, reading the newspaper in a corner; another man is seated with his two kids as they pick apart donuts and get icing all over their hands and face. Steve smiles when the boy rubs his nose and gets pink glaze all over it. Elena spots Steve quickly and smiles up at him. Steve waves at her, but he’ll gladly wait at the end of the line of customers. Sam is glaring at him.

“You weren’t kidding, were you?” Sam asks. “Who gave you a driver’s license?” Steve just sort of shrugs and then takes two steps forward as the client in front of him moves too.

“I can drive more carefully, if I want to,” Steve replies, on the defense now. “I just don’t, usually. Haven’t you seen me drive before?” Sam shakes his head.

“I hadn’t yet. And now that I have, I’m _not_ gettin’ on that bike with you,” Sam replies. “You’ll get us both killed and then my mom will resurrect you to kill you again.” Steve scowls at Sam.

“Your mom is a very nice woman. She would never kill me again,” he says. They shuffle forward another few places and Elena beckons them to the side. There are two cash registers in the store, the other one previously unused because there just aren’t enough people to bother opening it up for.

“He hasn’t gotten Yasha killed yet,” she notes. “And that’s been, what? Ten years now since you got that bike?”

“He’s gotten him _almost_ killed one time,” Nikolai notes, as he counts out change for his client, an older lady with greying hair and a rather remarkable tattoo sneaking up her collarbone. “Remember? Summer of... 08?” He focusses back on his client. “Here you go, madam. Have a nice day!”

“Neither of us got hurt much!” Steve protests. “And it wasn’t my fault either, the driver of the truck ran a red light. He was going a lot faster that is allowed to, too.” It was a miracle, really, that neither of them ended up with anything much worse than a couple of scrapes.

“Still counts. What can I get you two?” The jetlag doesn’t seem to have affected Elena at all, not a trace of tiredness on her face. Then again, in between running the bakery and following late night art classes, she must be used to this kind of stuff by now.

“Coffee to go. A _lot_ of it,” Steve replies. “Black for me.” Sam rattles off each order one by one. He has to guess on Natasha and Clint's parts, but they order the same type of coffee every single time anyway: Clint prefers his black with just one lump of sugar and strong enough to send a child into a ten-hour bout of hyperactivity. Natasha is a lot calmer, drinks her coffee black too, though nowhere near as strong as Clint's coffee has to be. It's a good thing Steve doesn't even have to try to memorize Tony's, because that one is a minefield. Elena's making the coffees as Sam describes them to her, writing, _'Steve'_ , _'Sam'_ , _'Clint'_ , _'Natasha'_ and _'Tony'_ on the cups in a handwriting impossibly neat, very similar to Winifred’s. Steve looks around at the array of donuts on the counter and almost at once spots half a dozen green glazed, white sprinkled donuts on display.

"And those green donuts too, please. All six of them," he says. "You've got no idea how glad I am to see those." He turns to Sam. “I may have promised Darcy green glazed donuts with sprinkles, if she ran the print first thing?”

“Of course you did,” Sam replies.

"You'll thank me later, when we get the fingerprint results long before the rest gets analyzed," Steve shoots back, as he grabs his wallet to pay for their coffees and donuts.

"I'm sure I will," Sam deadpans. "Until the captain starts a new ‘ _no food in lab spaces’_ poster series, and you get scolded because there’s green glaze all over the microscopes.”

 

 

 

Unfortunately, even with the bribery of donuts, it will take hours for the print to end up a match and they have very little to do except add the new victims to the whiteboard and find new theories. New theories don’t come easy; all they cause is a persistent headache right behind his eyes and arguments within the team. Around three PM, Sarah calls the station to let them know that Mike is out of surgery, but he isn’t doing well, having lost a lot of blood. If they’d discovered him half an hour later, and he wouldn’t have made it. Even now, it is still not certain he will make it. That news sours the mood even more, Clint retreating to the kitchen to spend some time with Lucky. So, by four Steve has locked his gun away in its locker and turned off his computer. He’s worked an hour too long already and the boxes in his apartment won’t pack themselves either. Besides, he has enough overtime built up to last for quite a while. Maybe a good night’s sleep and a shower will help him.

When he comes back from the kitchen after having put his coffee cup in the sink, he finds the rest of the team huddled around Natasha’s computer, staring intently at whatever is on the screen, none of them speaking.

“We’ve got a match on the print,” Natasha says calmly, looking at Steve over the computer screen. “And it looks like you were right. This guy is ex-military. Used to be a sniper in Iraq, before he got discharged in ’09.” Steve frowns. Snipers were rare, especially ones with discharges. Maybe the guy left when Steve was overseas with Bucky. Maybe on another battalion, another region to fight. Even then, they would have probably heard of him. News travels fast.

“What type of discharge?” Steve asks. He’s paused in the doorway, resisting the urge to go and walk over to the rest of the team. A sniper with a dishonorable discharge... that might give the guy a reason to lash out, work out the grudge. Why wait so long though? Got to be a trigger somewhere. Loss of a family member or job, maybe.

“Disability discharge," Clint replies. "He was shipped back to the US. Doesn't specify what type of disability. A lot of his records are redacted. We can probably get access to the full version of his file." No. Can't be. He walks over to the rest of the team, staring at Natasha's computer screen. The photograph on the military file is faded, still that same old picture they took the day they graduated boot camp. The pictures of youthful soldiers full of hopes and dreams and a naive view of what the war will be like. It is the same picture that hangs on the walls at George and Winifred's place, like a proud keepsake.

"Oh," Steve mutters, because he knows he has to say _something_ but he can't think of anything else to say. "Do we know why the file has been redacted so much?" Not that they would add in a reason, but it can't help but ask.

"No," Sam says. "Probably won't until we have the full file." The amount of blacking out is stunning, even to Steve. The basics are still there, his promotions up until Sergeant. The blocking out starts after ' _Mission: Stark_ ', or so Steve has nicknamed it.

"Waiting for the complete file could take days. We might not _have_ days," Steve mutters gloomily. " _He_ might be able to shed some light on it." Steve knows what fills about half of these blanks, or at least has a good guess at what does. They could go to Tony; that would also be a good option. But Bucky has a right to at the very least tell this part himself. He's got a right to do this the way he wants to.

And even if Bucky won't tell them, Tony is still the best option. He knows a lot about the mission - what with being the main person in it - knows about what happened and exactly what went wrong. He doesn't know the details about Bucky's imprisonment, but he knows that he _was_ imprisoned. And most of all, Stark doesn't have as many ties to Bucky, he won't feel as guilty as Steve would feel.

He makes a great big show of yawning, acting as tired as he can be; he needs some time to come to his senses, to work out just what he is okay with telling them about and what not. He can't take that time here. For once, he is wholly alone on something. Because he can't tell Bucky any of this, sharing his concerns with his ma or brother would be an option, but they work with Bucky every day and it wouldn't be fair on either of them. At all. Going to the Barnes's with it is an equally bad idea, and the rest of their group from the war... Well, they are spread over three or four states and this is not something he wants to do over the phone.

He leans onto the back of Clint’s chair, maybe too forcefully. Because it causes Clint to turn around and ask: “ _Steve_? You okay, man?” Steve runs his hands through his face. Is he? Yes.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he mumbles and stifles another yawn. “Just... tired. Bit of a headache.” Can he condone it to betray Bucky for a chance to really be in this investigation? “Are you going to question him?”

"Seems like the way to go," Sam replies. "Cheer up, Steve. We've got a lead!" Steve just nods.

"We do." And if this was _any_ other person they were going to interview, Steve would have been happy. He wouldn't have cared that he's tired and just wants to go home and crawl into bed for a whole century. But now? Seeing Bucky's name pop up in an investigation, especially one like this. All it does is add more weight to Steve's shoulders, makes him want to crawl into bed even more. "Are you guys okay with me going home?" He pinches the bridge of his nose, eyebrows knitting together.

“Sure," Natasha mutters, voice entirely unconvinced. "We’ll handle it.” She looks hardly impressed with Steve’s lying skills. Somehow, Steve really doesn’t want to be there when the rest of the team comes a-knocking on Bucky’s door. Not that Bucky will be there, since it isn’t anywhere near six PM yet. Steve just doesn’t want to see the hurt look on Bucky’s face, when he goes and says that they might suspect Bucky for murder. Bucky would be pissed though, if Steve would throw the option out of the window just because Bucky is his friend. Sam hasn't told the rest of the team that they've seen Bucky in the hospital, not yet anyway. Maybe he hasn't made the connection yet. Or is he giving Steve the time to talk about this on his own time.

“Just don’t do anything stupid," Sam says, half-heartedly. "Drive more safely on the way home.” _'Don’t do anything stupid'?_ Maybe he doesn't want to know just what Sam thinks he will do.

 

Despite Sam’s words, Steve races home, full on ready to face whatever mess he has left this morning. Hopefully, with Thor gone, he can finally clean the floor from all the clutter and boxes lying around, maybe unpack his DVDs so he can fall asleep to a movie. If he sleeps now, he’ll have trouble falling asleep at night, but what else is new? Thor has written a small addendum to the note Steve left him earlier that day: ‘ _key is in the mailbox’_. That’s not the only thing Thor has done in whatever time he has still spent in the apartment: the boxes are all sorted by room and left there. The two boxes marked living room (both ‘ _DVD’s & Music_’ and ‘ _Electronics’_ ) are waiting on Steve on the coffee table, the kitchen boxes on a counter, the two bags with his clothes are resting on the bed and the dining table has been assembled, while it was only a pile of ‘ _Lerhamn’_ boxes when Steve left for work. _Wow_.

Steve makes sure to send Thor a text to thank him and that whenever Thor needs a favor, he just need to name it. Knowing Thor, the chance that favor will be cashed in is very low but he has to make sure the offer is there. With some lounge music in the background, Steve sets himself to the task of sorting the rest of the boxes. His meticulous system takes him longer to sort through the boxes than it would take someone else. He has to sort all his books by genre, then author and publication order. His movies get sorted by year, then genre and then by title, movie series set off to the side and sorted by year the first movie came out, the same way his TV-series are sorted. That usually causes at least one issue, so he spends minutes deciding whether Outlander should be sorted with drama or with fantasy. He still has to go downtown and buy a new drawing desk, after his well-beloved original desk broke in the move, so he can’t put away all his art supplies yet. The kitchen is the easiest to organize, his cups get sorted by size, plates stacked. He’s only really got the necessary cutlery for three people, but he rarely holds parties in his office, so he only really needs them all when his mother and Alexander come over. This apartment is obviously built with a larger kitchen stock in mind; the cupboards look lonely rather than empty, with the plates and bowls, all the cups huddled together and otherwise just emptiness in the corners. It is a sad sight to Steve, who is used to tiny cupboards overflowing and messy.

He falls asleep during the first half hour of _Brave_ , his neck craned at an uncomfortable angle and his snoring loud enough that Colin might be able to hear it a floor up. His own damn fault.

Steve expressly remembers that he hasn’t given Bucky a key to the apartment yet, because he hasn’t been able to get to the locksmith’s in the past week, but when Steve wakes up it is dark in his apartment, he’s got a blanket thrown over his lower body and a warm blob of red fur has nestled itself against Steve’s chest. The TV is turned off, but the apartment smells like coffee and Steve hasn’t made any coffee in here yet. Steve gently picks Dmitri up, so he can sit up. Dmitri meows in complaint though he definitely doesn’t mind it when Steve puts him back onto the blanket a little while later. Steve pets the cat in apology.

“Dimka! Hey there boy. Where has that owner of yours got off to?” he muses sleepily. “Buck? You there?” He gets up unsteadily, stretching and popping his stuck joints. His headache may be gone, but now his neck hurts from sleeping so awkwardly. There’s no reply from anywhere in the apartment, so Steve pours himself a cup of coffee from the kitchen before he goes to sit next to Dmitri, who doesn’t really seem to mind Steve, as long as Steve doesn’t steal his blanket back.

“Guess it’s just you and me again,” he says. “What’s up with that, huh?” Dmitri stretches his little paws, kneading the blanket to his liking. “Yeah, you won’t tell me, will you?” The cat stays silent, as is expected, so Steve turns on the TV to watch the rest of Brave.

 

He’s almost halfway through the movie, with Dimka settled on Steve’s lap now, when Bucky walks into the apartment and crashes on the couch next to Steve. He’s got a key in hand, so that explains why the cat was there. Bucky looks even more exhausted than Steve felt before.

“Sleeping beauty has awoken!” he says dramatically. “I was going to help you unpack boxes, but then I saw you were drooling all over your couch. Figured, let it be.”

“I wasn’t drooling,” Steve protests, and gently lays a hand on Dmitri’s back. “I _don’t_ drool.” Bucky stretches himself out next to Steve, eyes focusing on the screen rather than Steve’s face.

“You would tell me, if I were in trouble? Wouldn’t you?” Steve doesn’t pause.

“Of course I would, Buck. You know that I would.”

 


	3. No Alibi

By the time Steve gets back to the PD the next day, the white board has a picture of Bucky tacked to it, and the words: ‘ _J. Barnes. No alibi_ ’ written underneath it. He stops by the white board, staring at that photograph, at the block letters so obviously written by Clint. Not only has the one print been linked to Bucky, but also a grainy picture taken from security camera footage. The footage is unfamiliar to Steve; he didn't even know they _had_ any kind of surveillance footage. Or maybe they just only asked for it when Steve left. The timestamp on the bottom of the picture says '04:45 AM', and it shows Bucky carrying a black duffle bag, the very same one he has always used for travel. But what was Bucky doing down there at that hour? Steve makes a mental note to ask Bucky about it when he gets back home. This needs to be cleared out and Steve isn’t going to just take the rest of the team’s word for it. Bucky needs a chance to explain himself, without being forced into the cold interrogation room of the PD. Steve shakes his head  at the whiteboard and goes through to his desk, where he finds he'd been quietly watched by Natasha. There is no trace of Sam or Clint, which worries him more than it should. It is of course a very real option that they have just run down to the lab or the morgue. But something tells Steve that that isn’t the case.

"You guys have been busy," Steve notes as he meets her gaze. He feels guilty. They shouldn't have to do this on their own. He should have come back later in the day. Who needs sleep anyway? "How long did you guys stay last night?" I would have come back to help."

"A couple of hours, not too long. I think Sam stayed until nine pm, but he was the last one out," Natasha replies, she frowns at him. "We went through Barnes's files but his criminal record is also redacted. Darcy is working on that."

"You should have called me," Steve replies. "I would have come back." And he would have, no matter how comfortable he was, with Dimka and Bucky. Sure, he would have grumbled about it to Bucky, and he would have looked cranky, but he would have come back to the precinct to help them.

"You looked dead on your feet yesterday, Steve," Natasha says, disapproval spread out over her face. "You would have been no good to us and you know it." Steve would protest, but she might have a point. He plows on without issue, even when running on the fewest of fumes. That does not mean that he does his best work when running on fumes.

“I'll stay longer today to make up for it," He says stubbornly. "Catch me up to speed, what did I miss yesterday?" By the looks of it, he has missed a _lot_ of stuff.

"We went down to the hospital to ask Barnes some questions. He has no alibi for the murders, claimed he was home alone, with his cat," she replies. That would not be enitrely unheard of. "A security camera from a small café opposite Carroll Park has him outside the park that night. Clint and Sam are on their way to his apartment, to bring him in for questioning, to see why he has been lying to us.” Steve nods slowly, trying to get it all to click in his head. _Why_ would Bucky lie about his whereabouts? It is not exactly uncommon for Bucky to be out at that hour, not when he's on call or has had a bad night. He doesn’t usually go out looking like a serial killer though, and the black hooded sweatshirt with the hood pulled up and the black duffel bag he carries? It really doesn’t say ‘ _I’m a nice guy_ ’. There has got to be another reason. Apart from Bucky scouting out the park for hiding spots. Getting ready to kill.

Good God. He doesn’t want to have to think about this.

"Does he have any links to the victims? What is his motive?" he asks anyway, to hide his confusion. There is no paperwork for him to do - he worked on whatever little he had yesterday, while they were brainstorming - but he paces down to his desk anyway, just for something to do.

"Don’t know yet. Could be anything. Revenge for something they’ve done to him. Anger over his discharge from the military? He’s an LDSK, could be any number of things." They would label him an LDSK, the infamously difficult to catch serial killers like... well, possibly like Buck. Something is off though. Anger over his discharge from the military? It was a medical discharge and while Bucky wasn’t exactly happy with himself at first, he has never actually been angry about it. Lost, sure, but not angry. He could probably even go back, if he were to pull the right strings.

"Sam will be leading the interrogation, but you can sit in, if you want." Even before she's done speaking, Steve is already shaking his head. He doesn’t want to do this. Shouldn’t do this.

"No, I'll watch," he replies, a little too quickly. Natasha's eyes narrow.

"What's going on here, Steve?" she asks. "Yesterday, you leave the moment the print comes back with a name. Just now you were staring at that whiteboard like it has offended you, and normally we can't keep you away from an interrogation, especially with cases as high profile as this one is. What _is_ it about this case?" Steve grits his teeth, purses his lips. _‘Just breathe, Stevie, breathe! ‘s gonna be just fine.’_

"It's been bugging me, that's all," Steve replies, hesitantly. He doesn’t mean to lie, doesn’t _want_ to start this with lies but he’s got no choice. If he’s open about this, tells them that there is no way that Bucky killed these people, that Bucky _hates_ to shoot people and he only did it because he had to, back in their war days, they’ll just think he is biased. But they can’t know, because he’ll be kicked off of this investigation by lunch time if he does. They might be right. He wouldn't stop being objective, not that he thinks. It is just that Bucky being the killer makes about as much sense as having Trump as president of the United States.

"It’s been bugging you?" she asks, obviously not as convinced with Steve's reasoning. “That's all there is to this?" Steve nods tersely.

"Yes, that’s all there is to this. Just let it go, Natasha." He is acting a lot angrier than he’s got any right to be. Doesn't intend to snap at her but he does anyway.

Sam and Clint walk into the station just then, with Bucky walking in front of them. He isn’t handcuffed yet, and he doesn’t look _too_ bothered, so that is a good start. But he's worn, worn and wary and there's just something off about him. His nerves are strung too high. This can't end well, it just can't.

Sam leads Bucky out towards the interrogation room before either Steve or Bucky has a chance to say anything, to even glance at each other, but Steve makes sure to follow them and watch from the side room as they both take their places. It is already cold in the investigation room, but when Clint comes in right behind Steve, he turns down the thermostat by another degree. Steve’s fist clenches.

"Mister Barnes. Where were you around 4:30 am yesterday morning?" Sam asks, leaned back in the metal chair. The camera in the corner blinks steadily every few seconds, a little red dot at the edge of his vision.

"I already told you," Bucky replies, more than a little confused. "I was at home, watching fight club. Dimka was with me." Bucky's scratching the edge of the scars on his neck, every so often flashing a little glimpse of raw skin. Sam slides a beige folder towards him, revealing a second copy of the surveillance picture. Bucky bites his bottom lip when he sees the picture, one hand drifting over to it, as if to move it closer, but he halts midway and drops his hand again, fingers against the metal of the table.

"Except you weren't, were you, Mr. Barnes?" he asks. "This is time-stamped 4:34:17 AM. Let's try this again. Where were you at that time?" Bucky opens and closes his mouth, opens it again and just sighs so silently the recorder probably won't pick up on it. Steve closes his eyes, heart beating in his chest. He can feel it in his throat, a throbbing ache. Damn it, Bucky.

"I went down to my brother's," he finally replies. "I had a nightmare that I couldn't shake and I didn't want to..." He looks at the reflective glass, right past Sam, and signs a quick 'sorry'. "I just didn't want to bother my friend with it. So, I got some coffee and went to Peter’s." Bucky taps the photo. "I think that is when I came back. I needed to go down to my brother’s anyway, because he had taken my bag when we landed at JFK that morning. When I went home, I took it with me. I don't see how this is a crime."

"Will your brother be able to confirm that?" Sam asks. "Why couldn't you tell us before?" Steve is almost glued to the divider screen, though he tries his best not to make himself look too eager. It’s only Clint there, but Clint is watching equally concerned.

“Did you see that?” he asks. “ _Sorry_? Sorry for what?” Steve just shrugs. He had almost forgotten that Clint can sign too. That he can’t hear worth a damn, without those implants above his ears. So far for secret messages. Steve was already halfway through replying a short ‘ _no worries_ ’, - although Bucky won’t be able to see it, it is always nice to go through the motions – but he drops his hand rather suddenly.

“You can ask him later,” Steve suggests. “If Sam hasn’t picked up on it. I somehow doubt it.” Clint smiles.

"Because I know what it looks like," Bucky says to Sam, rather harshly even. It pulls Steve’s attention back to the interrogation at hand and away from Clint’s prying eyes. "I didn't have anything to do with these murders. My brother can confirm that I was there, yeah. I left there around twenty past the hour, I think. I wasn't exactly in the best mindset to keep time very well." Bucky’s crumbling, a little it at a time.

"We'll be sure to confirm that with your brother,” Sam replies solemnly. “If you would write down his contact info for us.” Sam shoves a piece of paper and a pen Bucky’s way and Bucky absently starts writing, jotting down each letter more carelessly than Steve has seen him do before. That will be very unreadable contact info.

“What kind of mindset was that then?” Sam asks and Bucky’s pen stops in the middle of a letter. Bucky looks up at Sam and does _not_ look happy with that sentence.  If looks could kill, Sam would be very dead. _Twice_.

“ _Steve?”_ Clint says, confused. “Step away from the chair.” Steve hasn’t even realized that he’s grabbed a hold of the chair, but now his fingers have started to squeeze the metal tight.

He isn’t even completely comfortable talking to Steve about this stuff, or he would have gone off and talked to Steve rather than go down to his brother’s. He won’t go to the VA with this. Doesn’t want to bother strangers. Probably won’t even open up about it to his mother, then how difficult will it be for him to talk to a random police officer about it? This is not going to come out well. Not at all. Maybe it is a good thing that Bucky never actually went down to the VA. Because knowing that Sam helps with counseling sessions won’t make this any easier. He shoves the piece of paper back in Sam’s direction.

“I’ll go and get it,” Steve replies. “See if...” he almost says Peter, but manages to contain himself, “his brother can confirm that.” Steve passes Natasha in the hallway, she enters the side room to listen in as well.

“I’d just gotten off of a fifteen-hour flight, I couldn’t sleep well, I had just relived the worst moment of my life and my upstairs neighbor was being a misogynistic asshole,” Bucky replies testily. “You tell me.” Steve opens the door to the interrogation room, trying not to flinch when he hears the anger in Bucky’s voice. Sam looks conflicted, but Steve just walks to the edge of the table and gently brushes against Bucky’s hand when he grabs the paper.

“I’ll check in with the brother,” he says to Sam, just to make clear exactly what he’s doing there. He hopes his little brush by conveys his _‘Hey, it’s okay pal. No harm done’_ message, but he might be dead wrong. Bucky actually manages a little smile at Steve even though it is very unconvinced. He taps Steve’s finger gently, before he moves away out of the room. Steve hopes Sam hasn’t noticed. That the rest of the team hasn’t noticed it. But well... He’ll have to explain himself someday. Sam looks troubled, though.

“It’s no use getting mad at me,” he notes dryly, as Steve closes the door behind himself. Natasha is in the little room, when Steve comes back. He has no intention of missing a beat of the interrogation, but he will have to call Peter now. And make it seem like he doesn’t know him. Bucky’s hand must really have shaken, because even Steve is having some trouble trying to read it all. It obviously says Peter though, and Peter’s number is programmed in Steve’s cell.

 

Steve doesn’t go back into the room to call, but goes back to his desk. No listening ears might be best right now. Peter picks up his phone almost at once.

“Steve!” he says. “Long time no see. How are you?” Peter spends a lot of his time up in the sky, flying passenger jets around the world. It is pretty rare when he isn’t flying so much, but he must still be on vacation.

“Hey Peter,” Steve says, trying to keep his tone vaguely civil. “I’ve been better. Where are you right now?” There’s a lot of background noise.

“JFK,” he replies. “Got a flight to Prague in an hour or so. A co-worker is sick so goodbye vacation day I had saved up. Why? Is something the matter?” Steve swallows, not sure how to address this. Even worrying one Barnes (who isn’t Bucky) will lead to the whole family worrying and that is just one thing no one wants to deal with. Worried Winifred Barnes is a force to be reckoned with.

“Nothing’s wrong. Not per se. I just need you to confirm something for me. It has to do with Bucky.” The line stays silent for at least half a minute, nothing coming through but sharp breaths.

“ _Yasha_? Okay, tell me what’s wrong,” Peter says, focused. “And how I can help.”

“You need to confirm his whereabouts,” Steve breathes. “Was he with you yesterday morning?”

“ _His whereabouts?_ ” Peter exclaims. “Jesus. What are you guys convicting him of?” He knows bad news when he hears it, just as surely as Steve does.

“Nothing yet, nothing yet,” Steve replies quickly, “and we can probably keep it that way. Was he with you, yesterday morning or wasn’t he?” The noise of people in the background only gets louder, Peter getting tougher to understand as more of the flight crew arrives.

“He was. He arrived around a quarter to four? Left around fifteen past four, I think. I got the text about the sick coworker just before he left, I can look at the exact time if you want,” Peter says, voice uneven. He is too much like his mother; he can’t hide his worry either. “Oh, God... This is about those murders, isn’t it? _Damn it, Steve._ You know Yasha can’t do that.”

“I know,” Steve says, defensive now. He has to control his voice. Anger won’t go over well. “Of course I know! But my word just isn’t good enough for the rest of the team. We need hard proof, to keep him from being convicted. And I can’t show them I know him, or I’ll be kicked off of the investigation. I need to be kept in the loop.” Peter sighs, resigned.

“Just take care of him, Steve,” Peter says. “You _know_ how he is. And he was a wreck yesterday. Everyone is, after all those hours in the plane. But damn it. It was _bad_. I don’t think all of us _combined_ would’ve looked quite as bad. He wouldn’t tell me anything about it.” And that is so Bucky. Suffer in silence, don’t tell ‘em a thing. Except, that didn’t use to include _Steve_. And it bugs him. Bugs him to hell and back.

“I get that,” Steve replies sadly. “He didn’t come to me about it either. And my partner might be dragging it out of him right now, so I really need to get back to the interrogation. Don’t you worry about it too much. We’ll get Yasha out of here in no time.” He wishes the case was as easy as that. That he had enough evidence to get Bucky out of the interrogation, no questions asked.

“You better, Rogers,” Peter replies half-hearted. Not angry or sad but just... lost. “Defend him.” Steve laughs but it is a forced, unhappy laugh.

“You know I will. Safe travels, Peter. I’ll talk to you once you’re back in New York. Won’t keep you out of the loop, promise.” The line goes dead and Steve hurries back to the interrogation. Bucky looks as agitated as he’s ever seen him, almost fuming.

“Do you recognize these people?” Sam is asking as he pushes another beige envelope towards Bucky. It has pictures of the victims, before they were killed. All of them happy and smiling with the sun shining down on them. Bucky taps the first photo of a graying Father Lawrence, the photo is old, Steve never quite saw Father Lawrence before he was full-on grey. Steve’s phone buzzes, it’s Peter: ‘ _Got that text at 04:17 AM’_.

“That is Father Lawrence, he preached in a small church. We used to attend mass a lot, when I was a kid,” he says, mock resignation clear in his voice. “Those last two are Lauren and Mike. Lauren works in the hospital with me, Mike is her fiancé. I don’t know who the rest of them are.” Sam stares straight at Bucky, obviously not believing that. “I _don’t_.”

“What did the brother say?” Clint asks Steve, when Steve doesn’t say anything of his own, just watches Bucky squirm with a growing feeling of dread, a dread that he can’t shake.

“Oh, he confirms the alibi. Bu-... Mr. Barnes was there until a little after 04:17 AM,” he replies, he really should stop saying Bucky. “He’d gotten a text just as Barnes was leaving, so that’s why he’s so precise. If we want to ask him more, we’ll need to wait. He’s on a flight to Prague sometime in the next hour or so.” Natasha nods. “Didn’t say when he’d be back.”

“This brother, where does he live?” she asks Steve, who makes quite a show of pulling the piece of notepaper out of his pocket, though he wouldn’t be able to read it if he didn’t already know what it says.

“Other side of the park,” he replies. That would put Bucky on the other side of the park around thirty-five, if he went around the park. If Bucky has cut through the park though. That would leave plenty of time for him to get into position. And the building where the shells were found is close to where Bucky was last seen. Damn it. This is not going to cut it, for an alibi.

"Jane called, while you were talking to the brother," Clint says, and he actually seems happy with something. That happiness fills Steve with more dread than anything should. Because that means something _bad_. Really fucking bad.

"Oh?" He manages not to sound like somebody is choking him, but that is exactly how he feels. "What'd she have to say?" Clint exchanges a glance with Natasha then says:

"The shells came back a match to a type of Sniper rifle. The very same type that James Barnes has registered to his name." Steve holds on to his chair maybe a little too tightly, knuckles standing out against pale skin, stretched tight over the bones.

"Could be a coincidence," Steve says, a lot surer than he actually feels. "He can't be the only one who has that rifle." Steve knew about the rifle, of course. Knows exactly where Bucky stores it, which duffle bag it sits in, hidden away in the kitchen cupboard that doesn’t look like a cupboard and requires a lot of fiddling to even try to open. Steve found the gun when he had to open that cupboard to fix a leaky sink, back when Bucky was still learning how to properly use his – back then new – metal arm. Though it is the same make and model of his old sniper rifle he used in the war, though not the exact same gun. It serves like a lifeline nowadays. It reminds Bucky of the past; Steve's seen him pull it out of the bag it is in some bad nights, lay it down on the bed and just stare at it, hold it maybe. It helps Bucky deal with things, sometimes.

Only now, Steve realizes how messed up that might seem to his coworkers.

"You don't think we've got our guy?" Clint asks, while he feigns surprise, it doesn’t really cut it. It’s so obvious he’d been expecting it.

"I don't," Steve says firmly, choosing to ignore Clint’s feigned surprise. "Don't you think it is suspicious? We had nothing for so damn long, and now we get a new piece of evidence every hour. I'm telling you, something is off about this." ' _I know Bucky, he wouldn't_ '.

"He's an ex-sniper. He's got the skills needed to shoot the way our killer does," Natasha says. "He's got the rifle the victims were shot with, no motive for any of the murders and a temper. There were no murders for almost two weeks which incidentally coincides with the travel plans of Barnes. I'd say that is fair enough. We're getting the clues because this guy's plans are unraveling. He's making mistakes and that's costing him. How different is this case to any other case we've done? The killer makes a mistake and we get on his trail." Steve bites back a reply that's essentially a long rant with unnecessary and not so very creative cursing.

"It is too early in the investigation to start focusing on one subject already," Steve finally bites back. "This can all be some kind of messed up coincidence. It has happened before, Natalia. You know it has." He's hardly paying attention to the interrogation now, though only the tone in Sam's voice says enough. Things have gotten tense. Bucky looks like he might just explode. Damn it. He’s going to have to fall back on that promise that he made to Peter. He won't be able to protect Bucky after all. Damn it.

"Do we have enough to keep him in jail?" Steve asks, hesitantly though he knows the answer. With all this evidence, and Sam already blaming Bucky, it would be a fool’s errand not to keep Bucky in the precinct. At least for now. They can't risk him escaping, or going to another country where they can't reach him. But then again, they don't have enough to make a case against Bucky. Maybe they will just let him go home, with a _'don't leave the country'_ notice. If Bucky could possibly be so lucky.

"Maybe," Natasha replies testily. "It all depends on how much Sam can get out of this guy." In the interrogation room, Sam’s finishing up the interrogation.

“That will be all for now,” Sam says. “Please stay inside the city for the remainder of the investigation.” Steve gets out of the side room before the others can and intercepts Sam and Bucky when they come out of the interrogation room.

“I’ll do that, Sam,” he says, looking at Bucky. Peter was right. He looks like he’s completely out of it. No jetlag can explain _this_.

“Okay. He’s all yours,” Sam says, stepping back to let Bucky and Steve pass.

They walk a little too close, shoulders bumping into each other every other step and when the metal collides with Steve’s shoulder a little _too_ hard, well... Steve’s not going to complain. They stay quiet until they’re out of sight from the rest of the team and opt to take the stairs rather than the elevator. On the landing, with the door closed behind them, Steve pulls Bucky into a quick, rather tight hug. Bucky leans right into it, his metal arm digging in a lot further than the flesh one does. When Bucky gets upset, as he is now, he has more difficulty with controlling the strength of the arm.

“Jesus, Buck, I’m so fucking sorry. I had no idea they were going to do that,” Steve blurts out in a flurry of words. “I would’ve warned you or something. Fuck it, I don’t know where they got all that info. I swear to God, when I came in this morning, all they had on that damn board was your picture. I thought it was going to be fine. How was I supposed to know that Sam was going to put so much pressure on you? If I'd known, I'd joined the interrogation and I would've joined in, I would’ve defended you, I swear.” Bucky’s grip on Steve gets a little tighter and Steve can’t breathe, but whether that is because of the tension escaping him or the tightness of the hug. Then Bucky lets go all of a sudden and Steve backs off just a little bit. Bucky’s looking right at Steve with those big, sad grey eyes of his.

“It’s okay. It’s your job,” he says. “I just... I didn't do this Stevie. I didn't. You got to believe me."

“I believe you,” Steve replies. “I haven’t doubted you for a second, Buck. Why didn’t you tell them? I wouldn’t’ve gotten mad at you. Don’t have to tell me everything.” Bucky just vaguely shrugs, a little hopeless even, and as he starts to make his way to the ground floor. Steve follows suit.

“I didn’t want you to find out this way,” Bucky mutters, fingers trailing over the iron railing. He’s avoiding Steve’s eyes, looking down at his own feet. “I was gonna tell you all about it when you got home from work. But you were lying there drooling on the couch. And I thought, _let’s let him sleep_. So, that became today. Guess your team beat me to it.”

“I appreciate that,” Steve replies. “I _do_.” He manages half a weak smile in Bucky’s direction. “I’m gonna do the best I can to get them on a different track, promise. Or at least willing to see another option.”

“Thank you, Steve.”

“Promised I’d fight for you, didn’t I? ‘ _Till the end of the line_ ,’ I said. Ain’t about to give up on that promise.” They go down floor after floor, until they arrive back at the reception desk. They say goodbye airily, like old acquaintances, might. A gentle command to take care of themselves, answer that the other should do the same.

Steve doesn’t even know that Darcy is there until he steps on the elevator and sees her smiling at him. The button for the third floor is already lighted up, Darcy must be going to the homicide department as well. On its own, that's not a spectacular thing. They generally have a couple of cases running at the same time, though nowhere near as many as a couple of years earlier. Today, their sniper case is the only one that they're actively working on, apart from the two or three cold cases that litter the back of the whiteboard, like little spider webs. There haven't been any requests for data to be analyze for those cases, which means that this can only be for their sniper. Maybe this time it won't be bad news. Maybe this will be good. Steve's had plenty of bad news today, if he hears a lot more of it, he might punch someone.

"Good morning, Darcy," Steve says and while he tries for calm and happy, he sounds more concerned and angry. One more plan that has failed. "What brings you to the homicide department today?" He nods vaguely towards the button, as if he needs to explain just why he knows it.

“A criminal record,” she replies and tips the purple envelope she’s holding into Steve’s direction, so Steve can see the photo stuck to the edge of it with a paperclip. “You are mentioned in there quite a lot.”

Steve wants to not show he knows Bucky, but he won’t be able to hide the warm smile that spreads out over his face when he sees that picture of Bucky. It’s an old one, with Bucky no older than sixteen, maybe even younger. This is the stupid, rebellious Bucky, with bright blue tips in his hair and a suspicious colorless bit in his eyebrow, leather jackets and a fuck-off-attitude to match. Between that, and Steve’s troublemaker tendencies, they got into trouble so much. Steve can’t help but smile at that younger version of Bucky, still so innocent. Steve remembers clearly when he died Bucky’s hair; he spilled hair bleach all over his desk, ruined a pair of his favorite jeans and the apartment smelled like peroxide for a whole week. He would have gotten into so much trouble if Sarah and Alexander hadn’t been in the United Kingdom to be at a wedding because the house _reeked_ of the stuff; Steve hadn’t been able to go to the UK because he had an appointment in the hospital in the middle of the week and that couldn’t be postponed. Steve and Bucky spent a whole week sleeping on the couch and more often than not waking up in the space between the couch and the coffee table because they both tossed and turned so much. One of the best weeks of his childhood.

Steve looks away from the photo, forces himself to look at Darcy instead. He knows that rap sheet almost better than he knows his own.

“I am,” he acknowledges. “I know.” Darcy raises her eyebrows at him.

“Does the rest of the homicide squad know?” she asks. “And you’re still on the case?” Steve just shrugs and leans back against the metal railing of the elevator. Once the rest of them see this report, who the hell knows if he will still be on the case.

“Not yet,” Steve replies. “Guess they’ll know now.”

Darcy doesn’t miss a beat, the moment the elevator doors slide open, she’s out onto the floor, immediately towards Sam’s desk, where they are all gathered, desk chairs pulled up. Clint’s feet are propped up on the edge of the desk. Sam’s swatted them away twice already to no avail. Steve hangs back a little, as Darcy bounds on to the group.

“Just don’t knock over my coffee,” Sam says exasperated, as he moves a family photo over to another side of the desk. Darcy hands him the folder, photo side up. “Thanks, Darcy.”

“Oh, and that check-up you asked on the gun, came back. His gun is the same brand. Same bullets too."

“ _That is Barnes?_ ” Natasha says amusedly, as she picks the folder out of Sam’s hand. “He definitely went through his punk phase.” Clint releases his hold on Sam’s desk and moves closer to Natasha, leaning over her shoulder, to see just _what_ she is on about and promptly breaks out into a hearty, but short laugh.

“Looks like he lost an eyebrow in the process,” he says and before he can continue, Steve cuts in:

“He didn’t lose it. I spilled the hair bleach on his eyebrow.” He walks closer to the team, uncomfortable with the eyes on him, but he’s got no choice. “And the desk, a bit of the carpet _and_ my favorite jeans.” Steve doesn’t look them in the eye, just vaguely at the folder.

“Steve?” Natasha asks, confused. But it seems to start dawning on her.

“That pale spot in his eyebrow, I bleached it by accident one day. Took a couple of months for the last blonde hair to disappear,” Steve repeats. “I thought he would get mad at me for ruining his face. But he grinned and said it looked cool. Winifred was a lot less happy with it than he was.” Without even bothering to hide it, Clint passes Sam a ten-dollar note. " _You guys bet on me_?" Should he really be surprised with this? No, not really. "What were you two betting on, exactly?"

Sam has the decency to, at the very least, look a little bit ashamed. Clint just shakes his head with that same little grin still on his face.

"Trust me, you don't want to know what I bet on," he says smugly. Steve turns his eyes on Sam, who just shrugs.

"You don’t,” Sam repeats. “You really wanna trust Clint with that. I went with the sane option, that you two were childhood friends. And before you complain, I may have seen you two together at the hospital, but that does not mean that that I had any kind of advantage over Clint.”

“ _Clint?!”_ Steve asks, more urgently now. Anything that Sam says he doesn’t want to know, well... Steve trusts Sam well enough, but he needs to know. Natasha rolls her eyes at the men, and opens up the folder; there is a sizable stack of paper in there, the printing at least not very small. She must have also printed up army records. The stuff they pulled when they were young wouldn’t be able to fill all those pages, even in a fourteen-point font.

“He bet that you two had a one night stand at one point,” Natasha replies, obviously exasperated. “And that you are now so ashamed of it that you don’t even dare to mention it or look each other in the eye. There, I said it. Can we get back on case now, _please?_ ” Steve stares at Clint, a little incredulous.

“Do I seem like the one-night-stand type of guy to you?” Okay, he has to admit that he didn’t exactly try for a serious relationship with all of the people he’s dated, there have been a few where he just wanted to have a little fun. But they always knew what they were getting into, that it would be no-strings-attached.

“I don’t know. It’s not like we’ve ever gone out together. You seem like the type. And it is not like you seem to be picky when it comes to genders. So. Who knows?” Clint raises his eyebrows. “You didn’t say whether you ever did though.” Natasha sighs.

“Did you, Steve?” she asks, and she can’t hide even that little spark of amusement from her voice. Steve shakes his head. _Hell, no_.

“No, definitely not,” he replies. “No one night stands. No awkwardness. Can we get back to the case now?” Clint pouts, but reluctantly agrees.

“Damn it, Rogers. I’ll get those ten bucks back from you one way or another.” Steve just smiles at them.

“Be glad it isn’t a hundred,” he replies. “You should know better than to bet on me. “

“Why didn’t you tell us, Steve?” Natasha asks. “You’ve been finicky and hiding all day, why didn’t you just tell us that you know Barnes? It is not that difficult.” Steve sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. The why. He can explain it, but only to himself. To the others, this might not make a lick of sense.

“I didn’t want to tell you, until I found a good moment, a good _manner_ to say it at,” Steve says, the feeling of déjà vu washing over him. “I wanted to avoid being kicked off the investigation, and I know that I shouldn’t have. But this cannot be Bucky. It just _can’t_.” Natasha frowns at Steve.

“Bucky?”

“’s from his middle name. Buchanan,” Steve explains. “Bucky, Buck. Might use Sarge or Yasha too. Neither of them is likely to come by, but you can’t shut out nicknames if they’re being used around you.” Steve’s always had that be an issue. He picks up nicknames like someone else might accents. “We’re good friends. It is why I responded so weird yesterday and today. I didn't want to believe that my friend could do something like this. I know that is naive of me, but it is the truth." He should have a better speech ready. He really should.

"Seriously, that's all?" Clint asks. "Look, we've all had to investigate friends. It's not pretty, but we understand it's difficult. Why didn't you just tell us yesterday?" Steve shrugs.

"Conflict of interest," Steve says. "I thought you might kick me off of the investigation just because I am friends with him and wouldn't be able to form a good opinion." Honesty is never the most uncomfortable option. "I should have told you guys and you wouldn't have made a big deal out of it, I know." Clint's face lights up a little.

" _Oh_ , so you are the friend that Barnes didn't go to visit when he was in trouble," he says. "That ' _sorry_ ' in the interrogation room was directed at you." Steve nods.

"Yeah." It was part of their little secret language project. Steve taught Bucky sign language, so they would be able to talk about whatever to each other without parents or brothers or sisters listening in to their conversations. At Steve's place, they could just speak Russian, how much Steve really knew at that time anyway. And Sarah Rogers would roll her eyes and tell them to stop speaking Russian, before the neighbors got suspicious, and Winifred Barnes would smile and tell them to ' _quit it, before I decide that you must be planning something bad_ ', but they would love every second of it. Admittedly, the Rogers's had the worst neighbors possible when they still lived in that apartment; racist to a fault, they firmly believed that a woman's place was in the kitchen and taking care of the kids, of which they had six, the parents were still convinced that Reagan had it right and that those atom bombs were the right idea, and the kids were little bullies both on the playground and in classes, showing exactly the same racist beliefs their parents did. Very right winged family, with kids that wound up beating Steve up more than once just because he looked like he was trouble. "That was aimed at me."

"We won't make an issue out of it, but the moment you let your friendship with the guy cloud your judgment, you've got to go. We can't have you just neglect a prime suspect here. The evidence is there and you just chalk it up to coincidence," Sam replies.

"I don't want to. But it's just not Bucky. It's so not Bucky. He would never carve anything in his victim's necks."

"And why not?" Steve scowls at Sam. "Look, we're willing to give you the benefit of the doubt here, Steve, but you have got to work with us a little too." Steve sighs. Just how far can he go, without betraying Bucky’s trust? Even his brothers and sisters don’t know about it.

"He's got a scar. On his neck," he finally allows. "A brand mark." He regrets it the moment it comes out of his mouth; It is the completely wrong thing to say. Because this might add more fuel to the fire. They'll see the branding of the victims as a way of reliving his own crimes. Make them pay for what has been done to him. it is a completely logical way of thinking, he would come to the very same conclusion with others, but not with Bucky. "No, listen to me first, before you go making excuses. He _hates_ that thing. he won't even let his family see it. He covers it up all the time. He would never do that to another person, because he knows how much it hurts to see it every single time he looks into a damn mirror. Didn't you see the way he was with Lauren in that hospital room. The way he kept poking and scratching at his own scar, while she was talking? It _hurts_. And to him it is a _lot_ more than just a scar." Maybe a more civil tone would work better, but Steve is getting a little too defensive. They do not look convinced, not in the slightest. "You just gotta trust me on this, guys."

“You know what this looks like, right?” Sam says and while it is clear that he is trying to keep himself unbiased, it is difficult to see through a clue as big as this one. “He has a mark exactly where the victims are branded?”

“I _know._ You can trust me," Steve says. "If you don't give him the benefit of the doubt, give _me_ the benefit of the doubt. Something is off about this, actually completely off. And it is not just because it is Bucky." God, he's pleading now. Clint sighs and shakes his head.

"Don't make us regret it. Find something that doesn't fit with his MO. Find the faults and fix them, Rogers. You owe us that much." And he does owe them that much, so he reluctantly agrees.

 

 

 

 

That night, Steve pours over the case file like he never has before. His art easel gets converted into a white board stand. There are pictures of the victims in all the corners of the board, messily written objections underneath them, possible motives and objections to the motives. Times of death and Bucky’s timeline for those days. He burns through coffee faster than he can make replacements, hopping around and handwriting getting more and more messy. The print they’ve found on the shell casing should belong to Bucky’s left hand, the hand that now has no more prints but ridges and bumps. How could it even have ended up there... Old prints? He writes that down in dark blue marker underneath the picture. A web starts forming so clearly that Steve can’t neglect it. But it isn't perfect.

There is too little time in between Bucky landing at JFK, retrieving the gun and setting up to get there on time. Maybe, if Peter has looked through the bag, they can rule out that the rifle was even in there. That is only if Peter was curious enough to actually look, and Peter isn’t the most curious of the Barnes siblings, so the chance of that is pretty low. But still, he puts it down on his ‘ _to do_ ’ sheet because if there’s even a small chance that Peter _did_ check the bag.

He works the night away and while he finds another few inconsistencies – small ones, like too unclear footage to identify Bucky, timing that doesn’t quite match up, or too broad a description for the guy a witness had seen exiting a building – there isn’t enough to acquit Bucky. Not at all. He doesn’t’ give up, though. When has Steve Rogers ever known how to quit?

It takes a lot of self-restraint, not to run into Bucky’s apartment and ask him to verify everything and anything that goes on the board. Bucky needs his sleep as much as Steve needs his (although Steve doubts Bucky gets any either, he’s just choosing not to bother Steve with it). As soon as the grocery store opens at six-thirty am, Steve goes in to stock up on coffee. He’s doubting the merit of getting a bag of espresso coffee and not his regular coffee, when someone creeps up on him.

“Rough night?” Alexander asks, grabbing Steve’s shoulder and making him jump. Steve turns around and _scowls_ at his brother and whatever Alexander sees in Steve’s face, it’s not pretty. “ _Damn_. I’ve seen the drunks that come into the hospital that look better than you do.” He stares a little too intently at Steve’s face. “Cut back on the caffeine or the next time I see you is in a hospital bed, surrounded by IVs.” He intends for it not to sound judging, but Steve can’t help but feel judged all the same.

“Sure,” Steve replies as he grabs his usual roast and drops it into his shopping basket defiantly, “when I find another thing to keep me awake.”

“Try iced water,” Alexander replies, shaking his head. “It does wonders.” Still, Alexander grabs a bag of coffee grounds for himself and drops it in his shopping own cart.

“ _Try iced water_ ,” Steve parrots. “ _It does wonders._ Did you have a night shift? _”_ Alexander rolls his eyes and stares intently at the coffee in Steve’s basket, the only thing in there. At least Alexander seems to be stocking up on _everything_.

“Do as I say, not as I do,” he replies smugly. “Besides. I won’t have time to go shopping next week, working the day shift. So I’m just stocking up. You came _solely_ for coffee.” Steve is about to protest, but Alexander has a point. This _is_ just a coffee run. “What is wrong?” Together they move towards the cash register, Steve grabs a pack of gum on his way out, at least trying for a little more dignity than the coffee crazed look he must get now.

“Nothing’s wrong, Alex,” Steve replies. “There’s this case I’ve been breaking my head over.” Alexander pauses for half a second and grabs both the gum and the coffee out of Steve’s basket, puts it into his own cart.

“All right then. Come on, put that basket away. I’ll pay, if that is all you need.” Steve stops in his tracks. Unexpected kindness from his brother. “Pay me back if you want, but this will only be easier. Just gotta help me transfer this all into bags. Maybe help me carry it home.”

“Okay then,” Steve replies hesitantly. Unexpected kindness from his brother. But very accepted kindness. He doesn’t mind it much when Alexander helps him out, they always find ways to pay each other back; one time Steve helped paint Alexander’s new apartment in exchange for Alexander helping Steve in putting new flooring in their mother’s house, another time Alexander had bought Steve the new book in a series Steve had let Alexander borrow. Just little things they’d been doing since their childhood and became so natural now that they hardly even doubt it, at least Alexander did. Steve’s a lot more stubborn when it comes to Alexander helping him out.

He carries two grocery bags while Alexander carries the third one, they’re not exactly loaded up to the brim, but it is obvious this is a whole week’s worth of food. The walk back to Alexander’s apartment is a long, but pleasant one. They’ve got shadow for the most part, and there is a little breeze picking up.

“So, what’s bothering you about this case?” Alexander asks. “You’re not usually this...” he just gestures towards Steve. It explains enough.

“I firmly believe our suspect is innocent,” Steve replies, neglecting to mention it is Bucky. “There’s evidence there. But it isn’t all solid. There are little mistakes. Things that don’t quite fit, you know. I got the feeling that maybe, maybe we’re meant to...”

“You’re thinking someone set him up?” Alexander asks pensively. “Does the rest of your team agree?” Steve shifts the bags in his arms uneasily.

“No, they don’t share my beliefs. I’ve got to find a way to convince them somehow. But...” He sighs a long suffering sigh. “But I’ve got no idea how to do that. I’ve got only half a reasoning and even that’s faulty to some degree. Relies too much on might-be’s.”

“You’ll get there,” Alexander reassures Steve. “You convinced Ma to let you join the army, then you can _definitely_ convince a few coworkers that they need to take a step back and look at other options. What if you’re wrong?” Steve pauses in his tracks.

“I’m not,” he just replies. “I’m _not_ wrong about this. I can’t be.”

“What if you _are_?” Alexander persists. And Steve knows that Alexander means it well, he really does. But that does not mean that Alexander can really know how difficult this is going to be, he can't know. Because... Well, Steve doesn't know why he doesn't want to tell all of this to Alexander. If would be nice to be able to tell someone all of his worries without having to leave bits out or have things that he just can't say.

"You know, I think at this point it would be easier to conquer Russia in the middle of winter, dressed in a pair of swimming shorts," Steve replies. "Yeah. That's definitely easier than this." Alexander rolls his eyes at Steve.

“I’ll supply the shorts,” he replies. “Mom has never been this dramatic. You must've gotten it from dad. Hey, you’ll stay for a while, right? You still haven’t met Vanessa and she’s been nagging about meeting you for ages now. You just keep being too busy.”

“I know, I don’t mean to be, it just happens,” Steve replies, a sad little smile on his face. “I can’t stay too long. Is she home?” He doesn’t know what to expect from Vanessa. After all, while Alexander keeps mentioning her, and there already is the occasional photo on Alexander’s Facebook, but he hasn’t been able to figure out just what kind of woman this girlfriend of Alexander’s really is. He didn’t really want to meddle, it is Alexander’s first serious relationship after all, but after over half a year, maybe it is time to meet her.

"Yeah, she is," he replies, happily. "She’s got the day off. She'll be happy to finally meet that troublemaker that she keeps seeing on childhood photos, and keeps hearing about but never actually sees." Steve smiles at his brother, an actual warm smile. God. Alexander really is head over heels with her, isn’t he? It is so obvious, in the way that he gushes, the smile he gets all over his face when he does.

“Like you haven’t been talking about her every single chance you get,” Steve teases and Alexander blushes. Not a fire red, like Steve tends to do, but he blushes all the same. “Just what have you been telling her about me?”

“Nothing too bad,” Alexander replies, he searches his pocket for the key to the small apartment he rents with Vanessa, but then stops and just rings the doorbell. “The basics. That you’re a cop. That you used to be like a little Pitbull, fighting everyone that has enough of an attitude. She knows you used to be a soldier. Think that is it.” After a short buzz, a woman’s voice says at them, over the speaker:

“Xander, did you forget your keys again? I swear to God, if your head wasn’t screwed on straight it’d...” But she doesn’t get the chance to finish her sentence before Alexander cuts in.

“I brought home a stray,” he says, amusedly. “I got my key, but there are a lot of groceries.” Steve frowns at his brother, he’s been called a lot of things, but a stray hasn’t ever been one of them.

“You’d better not have brought home another kitten,” Vanessa says, and sighs once for good measure, but opens the door for them. “You know we’re not supposed to have more than one small pet.”

 

They make their way up to the first floor in silence, at least Alexander is smart enough not to pick an apartment for which he has to go up seemingly endless stairs, but it is not in silence. Alexander offers to carry the third bag for Steve, but Steve declines with a teasing:

“So you can go and act tough, carrying all the groceries? No thanks.” Alexander actually laughs at that, and when they actually arrive at the first floor, Vanessa is already waiting in the doorway. At first she’s got her arms crossed, but when she sees Steve she uncrosses them and actually smiles at him.

“Found this guy in the supermarket, staring at the coffee like he’d just lost his dearest little puppy, so I got him for you,” Alexander says teasingly. “I can probably exchange him for another one, if you don’t like him. Maybe with one of James’s brothers, he’s got plenty of them. Don’t think he’d mind having this particular this guy either.” Alexander pokes Steve in the shoulder and then just barks a short but loud laugh. Vanessa has a sort of ‘Oh, God, someone stop him’ look about her.

“Sorry, brother, you know what it is like. No returns. I’ve tried that with you, didn’t work,” Steve replies as he raises his eyebrows, daring Alexander to reply to that. This is probably the most at ease that Steve has seen Alexander outside of the family. Vanessa makes way so they can pass without spilling groceries all over the living room and hallway.

Two little goldfish swim towards the edge of their bowl at the sudden movement in the living room, but soon lose interest in the newcomers. Alexander puts his bags of groceries down on the kitchen table, and instructs Steve to do the same. Vanessa starts unpacking groceries and frowns at the two bags of coffee, but when Alexander takes the second bag of coffee and puts it aside for Steve, she seems to understand.

“I hope Alexander didn’t actually force you to come along,” she says to Steve as she moves the eggs towards their rightful spot in the fridge. Steve’s already moving to help them, grabs the bag of flour, but she stops him. “No, you don’t have to. Go sit, you’re a guest.” So, Steve just takes a seat in one of the kitchen chairs and watches Vanessa and Alexander move around each other in the small kitchen, barely managing not to knock into each other.

“No, he didn’t, he replies. “I kind of invited myself, actually. Couldn’t leave this guy to carry all those groceries himself. I hope you don’t mind. Can’t stay very long though.” Alexander reaches past Vanessa to put away the bag of lettuce, Vanessa gently rests her hand on his shoulder. It is almost like she doesn’t even notice, but they both smile a little when they do. She has to reach up because Alexander is a good four inches taller than Vanessa is. God, they’re so settled already. Vanessa turns to look at Steve.

“No, of course I don’t mind! Thank you, both in name of the groceries and for myself. Didn’t want squashed eggs now, did we?” Vanessa side-eyes Alexander. “Aren’t you even going to offer your brother something to drink?” But the look Alexander gives Vanessa says enough.

“You can get water, Steve. Or juice. No coffee for you.” Steve pouts. "And no pouting! I'm not moving you to the ER because you overdosed on caffeine!” Steve pouts all the same.

“Bucky would let me have coffee,” he says. “Come on, I didn’t drink that much coffee. I just didn’t sleep yet.” Alexander shakes his head in defiance.

“Steve,” he sighs. “James wouldn’t have to deal with our mother trying to kill him for allowing that to happen. James dragged you into the damn war. I don’t care what he’d let you do. Now, what’s it gonna be.” Vanessa looks at Alexander thoughtfully for a minute, then moves towards one of the kitchen cabinets. Alexander continues to unpack groceries, but he keeps an eye on Steve all the same. Wary. Like he isn’t sure just what Steve will do. Vanessa emerges from one of the kitchen cabinets, with a package of instant, decaffeinated coffee in hand.

“This we can do,” she offers. “It isn’t that bad, I used to drink it a lot. Normal coffee is better, of course. But... It’s something.”

“You don’t have to go through the bother,” Steve starts to say automatically. “I can just as well drink juice or something...” But Vanessa has already turned on the water boiler.

“Don’t you worry about it,” she replies. “You’ll only help me empty it. I’m the only one here who drinks it. Me, and my grandmother but she doesn’t come by very often. So you’ll do me a favor.” And when she says it like that, Steve will gladly agree.

“If you insist,” he says and then just sits and watches, as they unpack the rest of the groceries, still so weirdly in sync. Sure, the caffeine-less coffee is not actual coffee, but it goes down well, once Steve lets it cool down. One attempt at burning his tongue is enough, for one day. And it really does hurt, when he burns his tongue. He won’t be able to actually taste it, for a bit, but that is okay.

“You know, I’ve heard a lot about you, from Alexander,” Steve says, expressly eying Alexander, who looks like he just might be wondering exactly what he’s told Steve. “Gotta say, I didn’t actually believe he’d found someone that can match him. But he obviously has.” Vanessa smiles warmly. Like this is the last thing she’d been expecting, but that she’s very happy with it. She grabs her own cup of instant coffee and takes a seat with Steve.

“Ain’t easy, matching this guy,” Vanessa replies. “But I try. Gets especially difficult when he brings home stray kittens and wants to take care of all of them.” Steve stares at his brother suspiciously, as Alexander pours himself a cup of steaming coffee. Steve sniffs the air appreciatively. Damn it, that smells good.

“All of them?” he asks and sips his own ‘coffee’. “... Alexander?” Alexander discards the shopping bags and takes a seat opposite Steve, cup in hand.

“There were three of them!” Alexander protests. “I couldn’t just take one little kitten, have it miss its little brothers and sisters, and leave the other two in the ‘ _Kittens. Four weeks old, mixed breed. Free_ ’ cardboard box someone left outside the hospital now, could I? I am not that cruel!” Alexander turns his attention towards Vanessa. “Besides, our landlord didn’t make it much of an issue. He just warned us that if he ran into any trouble with the neighbors, we’d need to find a new home for them. They are very well behaved little kittens. Haven't made a problem yet.” Steve unwillingly looks around the apartment, as if a trio of little troublemakers wouldn’t have caught his attention earlier.

“They’re at the vet’s,” Vanessa explains. “My brother took them for a routine checkup. Trust me, they would be climbing all over you if they knew you were here. Especially Oscar. He’d climb up in your lap and not let you leave ever again.”

“How are they doing?” he asks. “Four weeks... That’s very early to leave their mother.”

“They had some issues with worms at first, but after medication, things have gotten better,” Vanessa says, “We had to keep them with different colored collars, and had a whole schedule on the corkboard, because we kept forgetting which one had already been given its medication. And well, which one was which.” Steve’s gaze wanders over to one of the walls, at all he pictures that have been put up. There’s a lot of familiar faces, a picture of Joe Rogers, with a baby Alexander in his arms next to it Alexander’s med school graduation picture. These two are surrounded by pictures of Vanessa’s family. “They’re little troublemakers. The three of them.” She sounds fond. Alexander may have brought them home without Vanessa’s consent, but she seems to like them just as much as Alexander does, now.

Steve stays longer than he intended to, and by the time he makes it back to his apartment, it’s almost eight AM. He is only supposed to be at the station at nine, so he’s got plenty of time to get ready, to get himself looking more like a respectable police officer and less like... well, himself. He still feels drained. Mainly because while he loves his brother, being around Alexander gives him the strangest sort of homesickness. There is nothing to miss,

he has everything he needs: a good home though the neighbors are crappy, a steady job that holds odd hours but is satisfying, both loving friends and family he can turn to whenever something is wrong, that damned cat that has wiggled his way into Steve’s heart and won’t let go even if Steve would want that. Still Steve feels that strange feeling that could only be homesickness if being homesick meant longing for a home he hasn’t ever known. Longing for a future just inches out of his reach.

The feeling only strengthens when Steve comes home to an empty, dark apartment that is hot enough to make him throw off the jacket he’s wearing the second he walks in, in favor of something a lot colder. He can only stare sadly at the result of his night of brainstorming sitting on that easel, at the stacked boxes around it littered with whiteboard markers and unused fridge magnets depicting Dora the Explorer. Nothing about this screams: ’ _settled’_. All it shows, is the apartment of a tired and lonesome bachelor.

It is the worst feeling in the world because he knows he doesn't need to be so fucking upset with Alexander's happiness. He doesn't want to be jealous of his brother, with his three little literary kittens and his girlfriend and his apartment that actually looks settled, not like it is just another halfway home. Another temporary home for him to fill for another year or two. And by the end of his lease, the apartment may have the joyful clutter, the little accents of color and the decorations. Little touches that make it completely Steve's, that show it has really been lived in. But he won't have settled, not really.

Steve abandons his coffee on the counter, not caring for coffee right about now, and takes the whiteboard from the easel, to sit down in the middle of his living room and just stare at it. The board isn't as filled up much as he wants and it is definitely nowhere near as filled as it should be, if Steve wants it to be enough for the rest of the team to realize that Bucky is being set up. Steve pauses and grabs the copy of the case file for the second murder. There’s a piece of evidence missing, must have slipped his mind last night. One of the witnesses had found a ring at the crime scene. A simple, chrome thing on a metal chain. Like it was the one ring. But it hadn't been any of the victims’. Finger print results were inconclusive. But that was then, and this is now.

With a heavy heart, he picks up the phone to call the homicide department. They will have run the prints against the prints that are in the record by now. Maybe if that was a match, Bucky will remember where he has seen that ring before. How he had touched them, held it maybe. It’s a base for Steve to work off.

“Detective Barton, homicide department," Clint says, as he picks up the phone. Somehow Clint always sounds cheerful, even when they’re in the middle of an investigation like this. He rattles of his rank and department, as if by now he’s gotten so used to it that he’ll pick up his private cell phone the exact same way.

"Clint," Steve stays, after just enough time for him to gather himself. Clint's chair creaks when he moves, the sound even audible through the speakers of Steve's mobile phone. "Did we run Barnes's prints against the ones that we found on the second victim?" There is a rustle of paper, folders moving. Clint's desk chair rolling away with squeaking wheels. Pages flutter open and Steve can hear Clint suppress a curse after a soft thud. He doesn't intend to smile at that, but he smiles all the same. "You okay, Clint?"

"Yeah, one of the folders slid underneath the bench," Clint replies. "Got it. Okay. The prints got tested. One of them came back with a 79% match to Barnes's right thumb. The rest of them were still inconclusive." Seventy-nine. That is not especially a lot. Even a smudged print sometimes gets worse results. Steve just hums.

"Okay. Thank you," he tells Clint, then keeps slowly asking: "Has there been any more evidence towards Buck?" The 'Buck' slips past his lips before he even realized it. The others know now, Steve no longer needs to mind his words, watch his tongue. But still he has that reflex. Maybe a good thing.

"No, none yet," Clint replies. "But there is another eye witness of the latest murder that has come forward. So I don't..." A shrill scream echoes through the apartment, from another floor. He wouldn't pay too much attention to such a scream otherwise, but this is not a normal scream. This is not the kind of scream someone screams out of joy, or because they're scared of a damn spider. This is pure, blood curdling horror.

"Help! Help!" The voice continues and Steve can hear the tears in the woman's voice, which shakes like a fallen leaf on the wind. "Oh my God, I think he's dead!”


	4. DOA

"Clint, I’ll need you guys at my home address. It may be a prank, didn't sound like it. Might need the paramedics. Can you call them for me?" Steve asks hurriedly, no time for long chatter, no time for explanations. “We might need the crime scene guys instead." Half a beat, then Clint's already speaking, keys clicking away.

“I'll get them down there as soon as possible. Has your address been changed in the system? Or haven't you gotten around to that yet?" Clint asks. "Tell me what is going on exactly." And of course, the scream wouldn’t have translated well over the phone. Not at all. It might have sounded like the background noise on TV.

“I just heard an upstairs neighbor scream: ‘ _Oh my God. I think he’s dead’_. She sounded genuinely scared, so I don't think it is some kind of prank or TV noise. I am going to check it out now. Probably best to wait on getting them until I have made sure though.”

“Okay, we..." Steve has already thrown down the phone before Clint can finish his sentence, and almost bolts out of his apartment, forgetting to end the call. Bucky is already ahead of him, running up the second flights of stairs before Steve is halfway through the first flight. _Just don't. Just don't let this be another murder_ , Steve can't help but think. It’s not that he _needs_ his weekdays to be normal – he gave up on the idea of regular weekdays months ago – but for once, could they start at the normal time? Could his workday start after he's taken a shower, after he has been able to at least make him look decent? No matter how much Steve wants it _not_ to be a murder, it still remains that there is a possible body on the seventh floor and that is not something that can wait. He gets to the top of the stairs and has to make his way around Bucky, who is standing there without moving, the metal fingers of his left hand – though they are still covered by the silicone sleeve – dig into the metal railing harder than Bucky probably even realizes. The railing is already starting to bend under his grip.

Steve wants to say something about it. Tell Bucky to stop, to release his grip on the railing but then he sees what Bucky is staring at in shock, and he can't bring himself to. The moment he sees the man lying there, in the doorway of apartment 7-B, he wants to turn and run. Preferably far away, until he is out of breath and every muscle in his body _aches_ for rest. He takes a moment to settle himself, deep breaths and then against his own instincts, he walks closer to the body.

It is slumped together against the doorframe, like a rag doll thrown away by a careless child grown tired of its doll. One arm is stretched out as if he was still trying to get up, to maybe call 911 on his own. A cell phone lies an inch out of reach, it's screen is shattered, little cracks spiral out from the left corner. Calling 911 wouldn’t have made any difference, he would have bled out before the paramedics even left the hospital. There is an impressive amount of blood pooled around him, it is almost like a little pond. It's immediately clear where it all comes from: the left side of his neck is one open wound, skin raw and thorn. Fresh blood still leaks down onto the shirt and onto the wooden floorboards. It runs into every single crease and crevice, it even runs underneath the metal threshold, into little cracks that it shouldn't even be able to creep into. Most of the blood is on his shirt, though. It is so soaked that only the edges of his right sleeve still show the original gray. The rest is a thickly layered blur of blood, all of it sticking to a lifeless torso as it is starting to dry out. That's not what finally makes Steve recognize the person lying there. It's the glasses. Once too big, they now lie on a bloodless spot of flooring four feet away from the body. The frames are bent and broken, glasses seemingly deliberately shattered into many little pieces. It is Colin. Colin Matthews. Steve closes his eyes slowly and then opens them again. But Colin is still there. _God damn it_.

Bucky's just staring at Colin’s body, wide-eyed and in shock. If Steve could, he would be doing the exact same thing. Just staring in shock and not doing a thing. He can’t afford to. This is just another crime scene and he needs it contained. He kneels down next to Colin and against better judgment, checks for a pulse. No matter how much pressure he puts on Colin’s thin wrist, no matter how much he squishes the veins in it, all that meets him is an odd stillness. Colin's wrist is still warm against Steve's skin, not as hot as it should be, but still... it wouldn’t have stood out in winter. Whoever killed him, has done it very recently. They might have missed the killer by a minute, nearly passed him on the stairs. The silencer theory stands, then. Because that is a gunshot wound if Steve’s ever seen one. And he has seen plenty of them.

Steve stands back up, knees popping as he does. First step: _preserve the crime scene_. Keep people from entering and exiting. He can’t do that alone and he still needs to call the rest of the team. Bucky is still standing at the top of the stairs, pale as a sheet and not moving. The woman who has found the body isn’t in any better state; she is sitting on one of the steps leading up to the eighth and final floor, head in her hands and she’s crying. Not the ugly sobbing, or wailing, but silent tears that trickle down to her elbow and fall down onto the wood.

“Bucky,” Steve says, carefully. There is no reply to Steve’s words. Only a vague, far-off stare. “ _Bucky_.” Still no reply. Steve takes a sharp breath and decides on a harsher, commanding tone. He doesn't like using this tone, but he will have to. “ _Snap out of it, Sergeant!_ ” Bucky blinks, his posture changes rapidly to a soldier’s stance. Habit kicking in before he can process Steve's words. If Steve didn’t know Bucky, he might think that Bucky wasn’t even startled by Steve yelling at him. Because Bucky startles in such a tiny way: he doesn’t move an inch, body perfectly still, but his eyes widen just a little, he sucks in his cheeks a little. It is mostly those wide eyes that betray him to Steve. Bucky looks around, scans every object, every person in the room. Threat assessment.

Steve really should have realized this would hit Bucky harder than anything he's seen in the hospital, any type of surgery of trauma. They have seen this type of injury before.

Because this _has_ to remind Bucky of Joshua Carter. Joshua had been a young, bright private. Joined the fight only months after Steve and Bucky did, still wet behind the ears. At that point, he was everything Steve and Bucky were and they became fast friends within days. Two months in, Joshua gets shot, bullet gone straight through his neck on the left side. After Steve and Bucky dragged him to a relatively safe point, Bucky spent over fifteen minutes applying pressure to the wound with his own jacket, but the wound was as unstoppable as any wound _can_ be. His jacket wasn’t enough to stem the flow, and eventually the blood made its way through the fabric, through Bucky's fingers, running down onto the dirt or down Bucky's arm, where it would stain his shirt and mix with Bucky's sweat into a disgusting, sticky mess that eventually coated the entire right side of his shirt and ribs. After Bucky’s jacket got soaked, Steve offered him his jacket to put against the wound. Even that wasn’t enough to keep Joshua from bleeding out.

They spent over fifteen minutes waiting for a medic to arrive, Bucky _begged_ Joshua not to die, to stay with them. ' _We’ll get you down to the hospital, Josh,' he promised, 'you’ll be just fine if you just hang in there_.' On minute sixteen, Joshua passed away. The medic arrived barely half a minute later. The moment the poor medic showed his face, Steve had to try his hardest to hold Bucky back, had to use all of his body to keep Bucky pinned to the ground to keep him from strangling the poor guy. And even then, he could barely keep Bucky contained. They both got blood and sand and sweat all over themselves but a lock-hold was the only thing he could do to keep Bucky from hurting both the medic and himself. That day, Bucky shot more hostiles than in the previous month combined.

Colin might as well be a duplicate of this case. Sure, Colin is not a soldier, but he is _young_. Steve hasn't gotten attached to him yet, because he hasn't had the chance to; he has only been able to see that one rotten side of Colin on an occasion which wasn't the best for either of them. Bucky has been living in the apartment building for the past _year_. He knows these people better than Steve does. Knows Colin a lot better than Steve does and is closer to him. Even to Steve, he doesn’t generally talk about new friends, he’ll mention the people in passing maybe. But it is obvious enough in his actions; only a couple of months earlier, when he baked Christmas cookies for everyone that lives in the building, including vegan versions for the teenage daughter of family 4-C and gluten-free versions for the two gluten intolerant kids 1-A has. Steve couldn't help but notice 1-A's package held a couple more cookies than the others.

“Buck?” Steve asks carefully. “You with me?” It doesn’t even take half a second for Bucky to nod, eyebrows pulled close together.

“Yeah,” he replies. “Sorry. What can I help with?” Steve nods. He is supposed to be the tough one, the guy who keeps a level head, the guy who makes sure that the rest of the team stays focused. He hates doing that to Bucky though.

“Can you go down to my apartment?” Steve asks as he runs a hand through his hair. “I’ll need my phone and badge. We’ll need the crime scene guys.” Bucky swallows but refuses to show more hurt than that. Damn Bucky and his damned pride.

“Okay,” Bucky says and his voice actually quavers a little. “ _God_. I... I’ll be right back. Badge and phone, right?”

“Yeah.” Bucky has to hold on to the stair railing on his way down. That might hurt Steve more than seeing Colin lying there. But Bucky isn’t the only person he needs to get in line.

Steve kneels down next to the woman on the stairs. He hasn’t seen her before, but the door to 7-A is open and no one seems to be inside of the actual apartment. She must have been out to get her mail or the paper when she stumbled upon Collin; can't have been awake for very long at all. She is still wearing her pajamas, her hair is a mess and she doesn't even seem to have noticed that one of her two yellow flip-flops has soaked up blood. Either the shock kept her from noticing the state of her shoe, or she just isn't awake enough to care.

They already knew that the killer has to be brash, taking the time to kill in broad daylight and then carve into his victims’ necks. The risk of being discovered is just too high for most killers. But this? This is on another level entirely. To kill a person in the hallway of an apartment building where over twenty people live, on one of the busiest hours of the day and in such a harsh way. He must have used a silencer, or they would have heard the shot. The killer was very likely there when Steve came back from his brother's. Just one floor higher. If Steve had just gone through the bother of moving up one extra flight of stairs before entering his apartment, he could've seen the killer or stopped this murder from happening in the first place.

“Hey, ma’am,” Steve asks, trying to keep his voice low and caring but he is not very good at it. “Mind if I sit?” She shakes her head and scoots over just an inch or two. Just enough for Steve to sit down next to her. He does. “Do you live in the building?”

“I do, 7-A,” the woman replies, her voice is barely even a whisper. Unsteady and broken. “I live in 7-A.” She looks up for just a second to stare at Steve, but she looks away almost at once. Like she can't look at him for too long.

“I’m Steve,” Steve says. Smalltalk is _not_ going to help either of them much, but it is better to try and calm her down first, to get a baseline of trust set in, if he wants her to talk about Colin, she’ll want to trust him just a little bit. “6-B.” The woman doesn’t smile at Steve, barely even lets him know that she heard him. Until she finally says:

“You chose a shitty time to move in, Steve.” Steve can't help but smile at that. When hasn't he chosen a bad time to move in somewhere?

“I did,” he acknowledges, trying to sound cheerful. “My timing sucks, as always.”

“You a cop?” The question phases Steve a little, but he nods.

“I am. Detective Rogers, NYPD Homicide department. My colleagues should be here soon. I know this is bad timing, and I apologize for that, but they will want to ask you questions. Do you think you are up for that?” While it is hopeful, he knows there is very little chance that she will be. She shakes her head, slowly. Still looking into it.

“No.” The no is about as shaky as the rest of her is. “I can’t. Poor, poor Colin. Is he really...” She can’t bring herself to say ‘ _dead’_. She just mouths the words with no sound.

“I am so sorry,” Steve replies, “but he is. I understand this is difficult. Is there anyone we can call, to stay with you for a bit?” Another curt shake.

“No. I’ll be fine.” Bucky suddenly shows up next to Steve, with the badge and phone in hand. It startles Steve a little, Bucky usually isn't _that_ silent. He silently hands everything to Steve, just nods. Bucky looks better than he did earlier, but still strung, a little on edge. Steve’s got an idea of why that is. After all, what’s worse than seeing somebody dead on the ground and then going to a place that should be a safe ground, but seeing just why they all think _you_ did it; realizing that they are going to think you killed the guy on the stairs. It can’t be easy at all or Bucky. Besides, if he saw the whiteboard, then he must have seen that Steve is trying his best to get this all worked out. Steve can’t focus on this right now. He can explain the whiteboard later.

Bucky stares at the carving in the side of Colin’s neck; it is a lot sloppier than on the first victim, words barely even legible, lines jagged and intersecting in places they shouldn’t. Maybe he was more rushed than before. Even Steve can’t stand to look at the raw wound, the torn skin, not with knowing the victim. He's never had to deal with anyone he knows before. This case is just throwing it all in.

“ _Steve_?” Steve's eyes snap up to Bucky, a little confused. “You phased out there for a second." Bucky sounds a little concerned.

"Sorry," Steve mutters.

"Clint is still on the line. I told him ‘bout Colin. They’re on their way,” Bucky says, strained, then hesitates. “You go wait on them downstairs. I’ll stay with Erin. Keep people from entering the crime scene.” The young woman – Erin, apparently – looks up at Bucky. “Come on, let’s get you inside with some tea, huh? Just you leave that shoe here for the crime scene guys. They got Stevie here on the case, and he’s the best damn homicide detective in the city. He will find who did this for us. C’mon.” If Steve is the best detective the entirety of New York City has to offer... then New York might be in some serious trouble. Bucky’s mask slides on in an instant. One minute he is shocked, beyond words with all the memories this calls to the surface, the next he is charming and caring, without a trace of hurt in his face. But those eyes of his, they can’t lie to Steve. Some days, Steve wishes that Bucky cared more about himself than about other, but today it really is a blessing. If he can keep Erin’s mind off of Colin for a while, if he can help her settle herself.

Erin lets Bucky help her up, and together they go back into the apartment. The lonely flip-flop that gets left behind, stands guard by the body. It’s a strange sight, but Steve can’t look away from it. He lifts his phone to his ear but the sounds coming from the speaker barely register with him. If Steve tilts his head at the right angle, it almost looks like Colin has just fallen asleep there that morning and never woke up. From the right angle, Steve can’t even see the fatal wound. Idly, he wonders if Colin had any family to notify. Everybody does, right?

“Clint, you still there?” All he hears is the wailing of the police sirens in the background and vague chatter, muted enough so Steve can hear it is words, but not understand what they’re saying exactly.

“On our way to the apartment building now,” Clint replies. “Which floor? Barnes didn’t say.” There is some disapproval to Clint’s ‘ _Barnes_ ’. And Steve understands, Bucky is still the one suspect they have and having hem call in the murder just isn’t the good thing. But, hell. Steve doesn’t want to deal with this right now.

“Seventh,” Steve replies, a little crankier than intended. “Are the crime scene guys on their way over here?”

“Yes,” Natasha replies. They must have put him on speaker. “Steve, what’s going on over there?”

“Colin Matthews. Lived in 7-C. He took a bullet to the neck; pretty gruesome. There is the same carving, only this time it says seven. It cannot have happened too long ago. The person living opposite him found him. She is in her apartment now but she is very shook up. Don't know she's going to be able to answer any questions. How far out are you?”

“Another ten minutes,” Clint replies. “Just leave the door open, we'll find our way up. God damn it! Drive on.” Steve can barely keep himself from chuckling.

“Okay. Door will be open when you get here. Don't run over any pedestrians.” The line goes dead before Steve can say ‘ _goodbye’_ , or maybe just before Clint can curse at _him_ now. Steve needs all of his ten minutes to move down seven flights of stairs and open the door.

The paramedics pull up just when Steve opens it. They’re too late of course, Colin is already beyond all hope. Still, Steve redirects them to the seventh floor and they trundle up in the dark blue uniforms; their bags filled with supplies. The very least they can do is declare Colin dead. The ambulance is parked haphazardly in front of the building, more parked on the sidewalk than in one of the empty parking spots in front of the building. It is not too surprising, since Parker is in charge of the driving, and he has _never_ been a careful driver. At all. But he has his speed, and he always manages to get his patient back to the hospital in however many pieces they started out with.

Clint, Natasha and Sam arrive barely a minute later and though Steve didn't think it was possible, they park the cruiser even more haphazardly. Any other car that has to pass, will have to squeeze its way past and hope not to damage a police cruiser. Steve stares at them, judging them. They might as well get a ticket, if a traffic cop stops by.

“ _What_? You try finding a good parking lot here,” Clint protests, ignoring Steve’s stares. “You move it, if it bothers you. Where is the neighbor that found the body?” If there is one thing Steve doesn’t want to do, then it is moving the police cruiser, but with the way they’ve parked it someone is bound to drive right into it and give the paramedics an actual job to do. So, he grabs the keys from Clint. There’s plenty of space in the underground parking lot, plenty of space where they will not turn the cruiser into a pile of scrap metal.

“Erin is in 7-A, but she is pretty shaken up. Buck’s with her now,” Steve replies. “I’ll be right back. Seventh floor, can’t miss.”

 

 

 

By the time Steve gets to the seventh floor, Banner has also arrived. He’s standing nearby while a rather young member of the crime scene squad takes photographs from every possible angle. He looks queasy, like this is his first homicide. Sam has up and disappeared, probably trying to talk to Erin, trying to get her to open up about what happened. That will only work if Bucky managed to calm her down. If Bucky is still in her apartment. They might have separated the two of them to make sure that they wouldn’t change their stories.

It only dawns on Steve then, that when they will ask if Erin has seen anything suspicious earlier nights and that the argument they had with Colin just a couple of days earlier, will be fresh on her mind. That she will blurt that out, and that Bucky will look even more suspicious. And well... They are already looking for an excuse that will prove that Bucky is the killer. How much more do they need?

“Steve,” Natasha says. “Give us the rundown here. What happened?” Steve just shrugs. He doesn’t have any more of an idea of what happened than anyone in here. All he did was come running when Erin screamed.

“Don’t know for sure. I came back from my brother’s about ten minutes before I heard the woman screaming. There was no one in sight that stood out. I heard a scream, and when I went up the stairs to check, I saw him. He was already dead. Never heard a shot or something. But that might have happened earlier. Can’t have taken long for him to bleed out.”

“It did not,” Banner confirms. “the bullet severed the jugular, but look.” Bruce lifts Colin’s shirt, it peels away slowly and reveals a small wound right beneath the collarbone. “He got stabbed with a small knife. From the look of it a kitchen knife, pretty long; but I will be able to tell you more about that once we get him back to the lab.” With the mess of blood, Steve hadn’t even noticed that there was second wound. Now it seems so obvious that all this blood couldn’t be from the one neck wound. There is just too much of the stuff.

“Did he bleed out from the stab wound, or the neck shot?” Steve asks, staring down at the little wound. It can’t have been a very big knife, but it must have been long.

“Can’t tell you yet,” Banner replies. “Not for sure. From the looks of it, he was shot first, then stabbed.” Steve turns to Natasha, both of them are frowning at the other. Stabbed later...

“Did he want to spare Colin?” Steve asks. “Give him a quick death, rather than leave him to bleed out slowly from his neck?” That would indicate a kind of personal bond.

“That would mean that he had a weak spot for Colin, liked him,” Sam replies and Steve jumps just a little. he hasn’t heard Sam come back from the apartment. What was it with him? “I tried to talk to Erin, but she is still too shocked to give a statement. I told her we’d come back tomorrow, and that she would need to give us a call if she decided that she was ready to talk about it. I was just going over to Barnes, see what he can tell us. Ask him about Colin. Have we found anything new?”

Before Steve can even speak, Natasha’s talking: “Yes. He stabbed Colin. But whether that is before or after shooting him, isn’t clear yet.”

“Mind if I talk to him first? See how he’s doing?” Steve asks. “I am not going to influence him. I just really need to talk to him.” Natasha shares a single look with Clint and Sam, then shakes her head. Clint has folded his arms over each other, mouth a thin line. They have obviously talked about this. They don’t look very happy. As if this is the worst case scenario, and they have already devised it.

“Steve. You know we can’t take that chance. You can go with Sam all you want, sit in on the interview. And if you need to talk to him, do that on your time off,” Clint says. And while Steve can see the logic in that, he can’t help but feel the anger bubble up in him. Because Bucky’s well-being should be a lot more important than their investigation, and it is to Steve. But apparently the rest doesn’t really care.

“Fine,” Steve snaps, harsher than he means to. “I think I will go with Sam.”

“You haven’t brought us anything yet,” Sam says, coolly. “All you’ve given us is your doubt. Doubt and honestly a fair deal of annoyance. We’re supposed to just trust you on this and you keep running out or keeping things from us.” Steve scowls.

“Sam. You have seen this day in, day out. This isn’t about the damn case," Steve says steadily, voice level. "If it was, I really wouldn’t be making an issue out of it. I wouldn't even be asking you. I know you want to keep me from meddling with Bucky's account of what happened. And I get that it is the right thing to do. All I want to do is make sure he is okay. That he is dealing with it." Steve grits his teeth. "Didn’t you guys read his file yet?”

“You have seen how much of it is redacted, Steve," Sam replies. "We know nothing more than that he's a sergeant and that he got off on a disability. From the looks of it a mental disability." Then they don't even know about the arm. Joshua wouldn’t even be a footnote on Bucky's file, but it would be in the medical file. They did a routine checkup on both of them afterwards, to make sure neither of them had a wound through which Joshua’s blood could have mixed with their own. They ran blood-work just in case.

“Okay. Uh. This probably wouldn’t be in the file anyway.” Steve runs a hand through his hair, conflicted. “But. I really don’t know if I can tell you anything about it. I am not betraying his trust.” Steve stares at the others, daring them to ask or say anything. Natasha seems mostly annoyed but quizzical. Like she is trying to make sense of exactly what Steve is trying to talk around. She doesn’t have enough information to actually figure it out though. Steve is sort of grateful for that. Someone’s making their way up the stairs, but Steve can’t really be bothered to look who it is, probably just another crime scene tech, to take photos or fingerprints. Maybe Ian, or Darcy.

“Do you even have anything, by way of evidence?” Natasha starts to ask, but gets interrupted when a deep voice asks:

“Detectives? I’ve got a search warrant for you.”

The guy delivering it is obviously on his way into work, dressed in a suit and tie. He grabs an envelope from his briefcase - a small, black leather thing that probably cost as much as Steve's entire kitchen - and hands it to Natasha.

"You are early," she says pleasantly as she takes it from him, suddenly all of the anger that she previously so obviously showed, has disappeared from her face. It is actually quite scary, the way her moods seem to shift sometimes. It is a mask just as fine as Bucky's. Only Steve can't see through Natasha's the way he can with Bucky and it bugs him. Bugs him to hell and back. Twice.

"Well, I was on my way to your office when I saw the police tape. This is the building on your warrant, so I thought you might have need of it." Steve sighs. Apparently he isn't even being kept in the loop anymore. When did they file for that? Mustn't have been too long ago, the DA makes quick work of most search warrants, especially if they have the type of evidence they do now.

"A search warrant?" he asks. "When the hell were you planning on telling me?" Briefcase-guy looks uncomfortably between the team members. This is not a situation he was working for, not something he was used to.

"When you got into the office this morning," Natasha replies, still with that odd calm that doesn't quite match up to Natasha. Not the Natasha he knows. "If this murder wouldn't have happened, you would also know that we found more surveillance footage of Barnes. This time on the security cameras from the building where our second victim lived." Steve's eyebrows knit together. Great, more security footage.

"Where was he, with Walsh?" Steve asks, not even feigning surprise at this point.

"Yes," Sam replies. "We have him and Walsh entering Walsh's dorm room about an hour before Walsh gets murdered. The later footage got deleted, so we don't have him exiting the building. Nor do we have anyone else entering, until the morning when Walsh's boyfriend discovered the body." Sam breaks away from the group. “I’m going to ask him questions. Come if you want to, but do it now.” Steve sighs and reluctantly follows Sam down the stairs.

 

Bucky isn't in his apartment, when they make it down the stairs. They knock three times, Sam calls: 'Mr. Barnes? Police. Open up!' But none of that gets them any closer to entering the apartment. Just to get this over with, Steve grabs his keys. Maybe Bucky is taking a nap or a shower or something. Knowing Bucky, it is more likely he's taking out his feelings on the poor punching bag he keeps in his bedroom.

“Damn it, Steve. You and your faith in the guy. If Barnes ran, I swear I’ll...” Sam says, more annoyed than ever, but just what Sam will do, remains a mystery to Steve because the door to Steve's own apartment opens up and Bucky emerges, keys in hand to lock up. He looks surprised for just a minute, before every trace of emotion wipes from his face, replaced with a smooth little half-smile.

“Sorry,” he says, “I was just looking for my Henley and jeans. Wanted to get the laundry done already." He redirects his look to Steve, glazing over Sam like Sam is an annoying fly. "You're still wearing them. That explains why I didn't find either of them in your room." Oh...right. He hasn't paid any attention to the clothes he's been wearing, they're comfortable enough and feel familiar enough that he has completely forgotten about the fact that they're Bucky's, not his own. Their lives are so tangled together even clothes no longer feel like they're not his. When did that happen?

"I'll wash 'em, don't worry 'bout it. D'you need them soon?" Steve asks, when none of them speaks or moves. He hasn't actually planned to do laundry any time soon, there still is way too little laundry for him to even consider that. But he could make an exception, if Bucky needs his shirt back. A small purple streak across Bucky's left hand confuses Steve, though. Maybe Bucky has been adding on to the whiteboard. While Steve certainly doesn't mind that, he wonders how much of this investigation is in accordance with the regulations. They are probably crossing a lot of rules at this point.

"Nah, that's okay. Keep it," Bucky replies, and actually smiles at Steve. Not the little smile that is his default emotion, but the amused smirk. "Not forever. I like you, but not enough to give you my favorite Henley." While Bucky definitely means a wholly different kind of 'like' than Steve's brain jumps to, Steve still sort of smirks. "Don't mean that I'm about to steal the clothes off of your back. Any time in the next week or so is fine."

"You'd think that after all these years...." They shouldn't keep a playful banter like this up with Sam around. "These long, long years with me around, you'd be willing to at the very least share clothes with me."

"I draw the line at favorite shirts. And quit it. You sound like Grandpa Charles on a bad day. What're ya here for?" Grandpa Charles is the only grandparent of Bucky's that Steve has ever met. He lived a couple of blocks down from Steve back when he was still mobile enough to live on his own and in the winter, Bucky and Steve would go down there after school for a cup of hot cocoa and a Disney movie. More often than not, they took one of the other Barnes's along and even Alexander went with them on a few occasions. On those few days they didn't watch any movies, Grandpa Charles would tell them stories and every single story began with him saying just how many years ago the story took place. “Many, many years...” Steve, who never got the chance to meet his own grandparents, got taken up into the family without even a moment’s hesitation. He's always been very fond of Charles.

"No, I don't," Steve protests. "I sound nowhere near as long-suffering as he did." Bucky does not look convinced. At all.

"We need to talk to you about what happened this morning," Sam replies, before Bucky can reply. "And we've got a search warrant for the apartment. Well, detective Romanov has the warrant. She should be coming down here later." The smile on Bucky's face freezes into place, getting more forced by the second. Bucky closes the door to Steve's place behind himself and rushes over to unlock his own apartment. The lights are still on, probably still from when he ran to help Erin. This is too close to home. Why would Bucky, if Bucky were the killer, kill someone who lives this close to him? Anyone halfway smart leaves nothing that can be traced back to him. Killing someone in your own apartment building is just plain stupid. Unless you want to take the blame away from yourself... Steve shuts down that line of thought like it’s a venomous snake.

"Come on in, then," he replies. "Can I get you some coffee, Sam? Oh, be careful. Dmitri isn’t very fond of strangers." The warning about Dimitri is almost an afterthought. Dimka isn't around new people a whole lot, and he does behave well with people he's been around a lot, so Steve would have forgotten to mention it completely. Bucky doesn’t even need to doubt whether Steve wants that caffeine.

Steve walks into Bucky’s apartment after Bucky, Sam follows a little more hesitantly. Apart from the lights that are turned on, the apartment is empty and silent, it feels off. Generally there is a lot more noise, the TV or radio would be on, the humming of a computer, maybe even the sound of something cooking on the stove. Now even Dmitri is silent, sleeping in warmth of the full sun.

“No, thank you,” Sam replies and takes a seat in one of the couches. “I’m good.” Steve doesn't have eyes for Sam, only Bucky. And he is scowling. Because the knuckles of Bucky's right hand are suspiciously discolored and bruising rapidly. He must have taken out his feelings on the punching bag.

“Hope you don’t mind if I pour myself some,” Bucky replies. “Steve. Come here for a sec?” Sam rolls his eyes at Steve, who goes straight for the kitchen area. It is not that Sam will hear them any less, but it gives them at least a semblance of privacy. To Steve’s surprise, Bucky looks worried. Not for himself, but for Steve. Steve grabs Bucky's bruised hand to inspect the bruising closer; it isn't as badly bruised as it looked at first glance but it doesn't look good. Bucky drags his hand away from Steve's grip and just shrugs.

"Have you put ice on 'em?" Steve asks, ever the concerned Steve.

“Нет," Bucky says, slowly but surely. Damn stubborn kid. "Что не так?” Steve doesn’t turn around to see if Sam is listening in, because well... the chance that Sam can even understand Bucky is tiny. By now Steve is so used to being the tough one, the one who doesn't show that he's feeling hurt, that the question takes him by surprise. He hasn't realized that the hurt he's feeling is visible on his face, not at all. Over time he’s become so used to repressing the shock that he doesn’t even recognize them when it does hit him head on. And the images of Joshua this has called up? They hurt. They hurt more than he would like to admit, even to himself. The adrenaline coursing through him is working its way out of his system and it leaves a large, gaping hole for the regret and the hurt to slowly trickle in, drip by miserable drip. Bucky doesn’t look at Steve, but just pours the both of them a cup of coffee. He gets himself his favorite cup, the ‘Trust me, I’m a doctor!’ mug that Steve bought him for his uni graduation for his coffee. Steve gets his usual coffee cup, 'New York's finest'.

“Ничего,” Steve replies solemnly. “Всё в порядке.” He knows he mispronounces it, but Buck will understand him. His Russian is getting rusty, he barely speaks Russian now, not enough option to. He should speak it more often, practice with Bucky if he wants to go to Russia next summer. If they even have that possibility. Bucky clacks his tongue and shakes his head. There is a knock on the door, but Bucky doesn’t turn to look. Steve does. Clint and Natasha are standing in the doorway, looking somewhat confused. Bucky pushes Steve's cup towards Steve. He still looks worried, but there is a softness in that worry, a calm around the edges. The small smile on his lips an actual, true smile.

“Нет. Я не верю тебя,” Bucky says slowly, dragging out syllables a little, lingering on letters. Then he seems to realize they’re not alone. “Он не может говорит по-русски, да?” He is trying to make sure that they can’t listen in. While that is sweet on its own, Steve can’t help but wonder how that will go over with the others. Steve runs his hand across Bucky’s, when he grabs his own cup of coffee. Bucky just gives him a vague headshake.

“Она может,” he mutters, and Natasha’s eyes widen just a little in surprise. She wasn’t expecting Russian out of him. Steve’s never had any reason to speak Russian at the station, or show any reading comprehension. So this probably comes out of the blue, for them. He doesn’t even know why he never mentioned it.

“Well, look at that. Rogers speaks Russian,” she says smoothly. “Let’s stick to English for now, boys. Won’t leave anyone out of the conversation.” She makes a small nod towards the other two men in the room. Bucky turns around, the room suddenly a lot more crowded than even just minutes earlier. Clint has sat himself down next to Sam, obviously closer than they would have liked. Bucky does not have a big couch and while it fits three people in a pinch, it won’t fit them comfortably. It barely even fits Bucky and Steve if one of them is lounging.

“Ain’t that remind you of Sarah?” Bucky asks Steve, still muted but no longer trying to keep the others from hearing. “She even sounds like her.” Natasha isn’t the first thing to come to mind when Steve thinks of his mother, but the similarity in words can’t be ignored. Natasha doesn’t sound as fond as Sarah did though. No one can reach Sarah Rogers levels of fondness. Natasha does not look impressed with Bucky.

“Yeah,” he replies with a chuckle. “Kinda does. Except ma would like us talking Russian.” Steve sits down on one of the chairs in the kitchen, not to have to squeeze into the living room as well. It is busy enough as is. He turns his mug so that the text faces himself, though the others have probably already seen, with the way they are watching Bucky.

“Detectives, can I get you guys something? Coffee, water?” Bucky asks and his eyes narrow on Clint, who looks awfully close to petting Dmitri. “Don’t, he’ll scratch you if you wake him up. He isn’t very good with strangers. Especially if you just appear out of nowhere.” Clint backs away almost at once. Dimka still wakes up and hisses once, for good measure. Bucky smiles at his cat.

“Coffee,” Clint says, “and thank you. For the warning.”

“Black? Or do you take sugar or milk?” Bucky asks. “C’mon, Dimka. Come bug Stevie. You know him.” Surprisingly, Dimka listens. He comes over and takes a single sniff of Steve trousers, then jumps up on the dinner table. When Steve moves his chair back, the cat settles down on his lap and sniffs some more. Steve just sort of chuckles. Dimka must have smelled the kittens, even if they weren’t there. Probably some hairs stuck to his clothing. Steve gently runs a hand over Dimka’s back. Bucky’s frowning as he brings Clint his coffee, in a plain, dark blue mug. No funny quotes for him.

“I smell like Sasha’s kittens,” he explains when Bucky cocks his head to the side curiously. “Dimka’s just claimin’ me again. Aren’t ya, boy?” Dimka meows. While Steve would never refer to Alexander as Sasha to his face, it’s become a habit to do so with Bucky. Just why he has picked it up, he’s got no clue. Bucky began calling him that and then it just spiraled out of control.

“The three little troublemakers? Were they around?” Bucky turns to the rest of the team, who’s been sitting there eying each other all the while. Like they don’t want to speak up. “Jesus. You guys got a search warrant? Then search the damn place. I ain’t stopping ya.”

“We will get to that later,” Natasha replies coldly. “For now we’d like to ask you questions. Can you give us a rundown of what happened this morning?”

“I can’t tell you much,” Bucky says, shrugging. “I was fixing my shower, it has been leaking for days and I couldn’t find out where it was leaking from. It was a crack in the casing, apparently. Duct tape does wonders until the replacement part comes in. Anyway. I had my music turned up pretty high. I had already heard something off a couple of times, so when I heard Erin scream, I turned my music off and I ran up to see her. Same thought Steve must’ve had.” He nods his head towards Steve. "The rest you know. Well, I went to pick up Steve's cell and badge after that."

"And then you decided to pick up the laundry?" Sam doesn't sound very convinced at all. "That seems very odd to do." Bucky scowls at Sam and shows him his fists. The left fist remains uncolored and in a way this accentuates just how bruised his other hand is. Steve gets up from his spot by the kitchen table, making sure to transfer Dimka to his arm first and walks over to the fridge. The top shelf is a freezer compartment, and it generally at the very least holds a bag of frozen vegetables, if not a bag of actual ice or an icepack.

"No. I took it out on the punching bag in my room, then I did the laundry," Bucky snaps. "Steve. Come on. I said 'no'. Stop it." Steve still grabs the bag of frozen soup mix and shoves it onto Bucky's still outstretched knuckles. He forces them onto the skin maybe a little too harshly.

"And I already told you to put ice on it," Steve says stubbornly. "What're you gonna do if you need to do a surgery tomorrow and your hands look like a stormy painting? Operate with left? You're not that ambidextrous." Bucky scoffs.

"I can operate with left just fine," he says. "I haven't broken them. They're just bruised a little." A little definitely does not do the bruising justice. At all. The tops of the knuckles are already starting to turn darker blue and Steve has had plenty of bruised knuckles to be able to tell just how much they will bruise. It is going to be bad.

Steve sighs. "I am sure they are only bruised, but it won't be my fault if you snip someone's artery because you aren't used to operating with left. Now ice 'em. You are a doctor, damn it. You know you should put ice on them. Isn't that what you spent half your internship doing?"

"Fine," Bucky says exasperated. He pushes the vegetables down onto his knuckles, still scowling. Steve goes back to his seat at the dinner table.

"Dmitri, your owner is a very stubborn one," he mutters absently. "Good thing he loves you." Bucky smirks and takes the vegetables off of his hand to pet Dimka. The cat has never liked Bucky's metal arm, not one bit. It doesn't feel right, and Steve can imagine that it must hurt to have that scratching over his head. So, Bucky goes out of his way not to use the metal arm to take care of the cat. Dimka purrs contentedly and Bucky goes back to leaning against the kitchen counter, bag of vegetables back where they belong.

"Oh, he knows," Bucky mutters, then stares at Sam. "I did my laundry because I had to do something. Haven't you ever gone on a cleaning spree because you just need to do something to keep your mind occupied?" Sam nods, vaguely.

"You were alone?" Bucky pinches his forehead with his metal hand.

"Unless you count Dmitri; yes, I was alone," he says. "I am not in the habit of being with other people when I embarrass myself pretending to know what is wrong with a leaky shower. I know. Can't prove it." Clint nods and gets up from the couch, his coffee still in hand.

"Let's get the crime scene guys in here to search."

 

 

 

Bucky has no desire to stay in his own apartment while the rest of the crew goes through his stuff. So he hides in Steve's apartment. Steve decides to do the same, he definitely does have an unfair advantage. He knows where everything in Bucky's apartment is. He knows where the gun is kept, knows where he keeps its rounds - far away from the actual gun, stuffed inside a lone white sock in the sock drawer - and knows where he would keep things that he needs to stay hidden. This is probably the one time that Steve could really help his coworkers and win their trust back. But if just feels _wrong_. So he has decidedly said: ' _no._ "

"You don't have to stay with me, Steve," Bucky says, as Steve examines his whiteboard. "Go, help your coworkers find stuff." There are lots of annotations in purple marker, written in Bucky's messy handwriting. One of the security photos has ' _THIS IS NOT ME'_ , written over it, barely legible in its all caps. When Steve looks down at the image, he can sort of see it. The face on the footage is very blurry, but the jaw isn't the right shape. The coat is off as well. Bucky has a coat like that sure, but it is a good five inches shorter than the one the person on the security footage is wearing. Bucky never wears coats that hang past his knees.

"Hush," Steve scolds, and throws Bucky a photo of the ring found at one of the crime scenes. "Have you seen this thing before?" Bucky grabs the picture from where it lands, halfway in between the two of them. He has to reach to grab it.

"Huh." Steve frowns at Bucky, cocking his head to the side. "I _have_ seen this before. But _where_?" Bucky flexes and relaxes his metal hand, even with the silicone cover, Steve can hear the whirring of the engines powering the metal plates. It keeps them mobile, but Steve has always found it fascinating, the way they shift over each other and fill the little gaps between them. Bucky reaches out towards one of Steve's sketchbooks that lies abandoned on one of the boxes. Steve really should have taken the time to clean up the boxes last night. "You mind?" Steve just shrugs. Bucky won't judge him for any of the pictures that are in there, he's seen plenty of early work. Listened to every single one of Steve's long-winded rants on why things weren't working out. Why not? It is his most recent sketchbook, barely has five finished drawings in it and a handful of sketches or halfway finished drawings.

"Go ahead," he replies and refocuses his attention to the whiteboard, taking in all the writing on it.

"Got it!" Bucky exclaims. "One of the guys on the second floor has one of these, 2..." He pauses. "2-C. The brother, not the sister. He dropped it about... two months ago. Was almost out of the door without realizing and I picked it up for him. Why?"

"This was found on the floor of Connor Walsh's apartment. It wasn't his or his boyfriend's," Steve replies and turns back to Bucky. "We think it belongs to the killer."

"It is not _mine_ , that's for sure. These things cost half my paycheck," Bucky replies. "Peter has one of these. Can only find them online. I think they're made of... Titanium? That and some kind of gem. He gave me the rundown when he got it. Wouldn't shut up about the thing." Steve jots it down on the board, another line of blue marker. The ring isn't the only thing that didn't pass the Bucky-test. The amount of little notes, little flaws that Steve hadn't noticed is actually stunning. Stuff like: ‘ _This guy's a lefty. With this wind and angle, he adjusted more than was necessary for a right-handed person. Scuffmarks on wrong side of hole in window_ ’. All this stuff that Steve just can't know, but somehow Bucky has figured out to a T. It makes sense, Bucky has a lot more experience, especially in the sniper department.

"You know, I think we might have enough on this board to plead your case," he tells Bucky, with a faint smile on his face. And it _does_ look like enough. The inconsistencies are major enough to get the guys to look into. It won't be half-assed evidence now, will it? Bucky smiles widely at Steve.

"You think so?" And Bucky just smiles.

"Yes, I do. Tell me about the victims. Do you know them? Apart from the obvious ones?" Bucky bites his lip.

"I know all of them," he says. Slowly, but steadily. "Some were old friends, people I met while at uni, some are old relationships. If you can call it that. But I know every single one of them." He doesn't seem as down about that as Steve would expect; it's like he has accepted it a long time ago. "At first I thought it was a coincidence. I mean, New York, it ain’t such a peaceful place. And it wasn't like I knew Jake so well... He was a drunken one night stand and I only remembered his name because I woke up at his place with a hell of a hangover and with the wrong pair of boxers on. After that his boyfriend came home and I had to make my escape through the window." Bucky chuckles at that. It must be a fond memory. "And then Susan died... She was my uni roommate. Hell of a girl, studied to be a lawyer. I think I told you 'bout her. Used to call her ' _Suze_ '. Father Lawrence... I think I always confided in him more than you did. He helped me a lot, helped me with figuring out whether religion was my thing. I cast it aside later on, but he _listened_. Convinced me to give God a shot." Another fond smile crosses Bucky's face. Steve is just humming. "You know how I relate to the others. Well, Darren... You may not know him. He was Joshua's step-dad. Wrote him a letter just after Joshua died. You know how the army can be when it comes to the KIA letters. So I wrote him that letter. Told him about his son, the friends he made, how good he was with civilians. I told him that I tried to save Joshua and apologized for not being able to save him. We kept in touch after that. He kept on telling me all these stories about Joshua, about how much of a joyful kid he had been, the comic books he used to read and would then gush about. _God_. You should have heard him speak about Joshua. It was like he was his own kid, not just a step-son... They're _all_ connected to me, Steve. And I _hate_ it. Because there is the possibility that it might be _your_ life on the line next. I don't think I can lose you." He isn't staring at Steve, but at that invitation that is tacked up on the fridge, staring without realizing he's doing it. "Or мама, папа, Peter, Elena, Maxim, Rebecca. Any of them." It almost seems like an afterthought. Like he hadn't really considered his siblings until he'd said that he wouldn't be able to cope with losing Steve. Bucky flusters just a little. Steve isn't going to mention it.

"I am not going to let that happen, Bucky. C'mere," Steve mutters in reply and Bucky does so. He leans his back against the wooden coffee table, mimicking Steve's position. It isn't very comfortable for either of them, but Bucky doesn't seem to care either. Steve turns his head towards Bucky and looks him square in the face. "I got a gun, I got _training_ and most importantly, I am too stubborn to let anyone just kill me. I survived a war, we _both_ did. We will both make it through this." And he tries for cheerful, but it comes out distorted and blurry. Only then, the reality of Bucky's words truly sinks in. Someone is carefully targeting people Bucky knows, most of them that he actually likes; going from a short lived fling to two people Bucky is really close with. "I am going to fight. Fight for me. Fight for you. They won't get any of us." _Fight for us_. Bucky smiles. Steve decidedly puts a hand on Bucky's shoulder - metal one - and squeezes it lightly. The position is too uncomfortable too leave it too long, Bucky sighs and leans his body against Steve's,

"You know, with a sniper, you ain't got a lotta choice. You'd think that all those years of war, you would have gotten some sense knocked in that head of yours. Where did that go? How did you get stuck with me?" Bucky wonders, and perhaps he hasn't meant to say it out loud, because he flusters just a little. " _Don't_. Do not read into that. I can see you doing it. This is the shock talking." Steve leans his head against Bucky's. Both of them are just so tired and shocked and worn; Steve can't bring himself to care what Bucky reads into his gestures.

"Sniper-schmiper. Let him try," Steve protests and closes his eyes. Just a couple of minutes of rest, maybe. This is comfy. This is good. He could stay like this for hours on end. Doze off with Bucky right there. And in the comforts of his own home, it is very easy to forget the investigation going on, on the other side of the door. Easy to ignore the footsteps and loud voices and think that this is just any other night. He can imagine that the movie is about to start and neither of them will be able to watch past the opening credits because they are so tired. A small smile quirks up on Steve's face. "Besides, it isn't my fault that you got stuck with me. You glued yourself to me, remember?" Bucky just smiles. Comfort like this was doomed right from the start and Steve really should have known that.

"Yeah. Least I did one thing right."

The door flies open, and while Bucky has the grace of startling without moving too much, Steve almost elbows Bucky in the ribs as he turns around towards the door, and is pretty sure that he still hits something, his shoulder or arm, maybe. It leaves a small sore spot on his elbow. And a sore spot on Bucky, probably.

" _Barnes_. Get up," Sam barks, glaring at Steve. Bucky's smile disappears, melts like a Popsicle left out in the sun too long. The weight against Steve's side disappears and Bucky gets up, confused to the maximum. Except. Steve has a terrible feeling in his gut. The way that Sam's speaking, the authority in his voice. There is something off about it. God damn it. Now that they are so close to figuring out a way to get Bucky cleared, they have found something to prove that Bucky did it. Idly, he wondering just what they found and how easily that this will be debunked. It's gonna be hell to pay, if they are this sure. Because they look like they have won the lottery and Bucky's going to be the price.

"What's going on?" Bucky asks, confused and worried at the same time, it comes out like a grunt. And it is Natasha, who turns Bucky's arms towards his back and handcuffs him. Who proves Steve's theory that that have found something to prove Bucky killed all those people. But he didn't. He didn't. Steve has never gotten up so quickly in his life. One second he is sitting on the floor, the next he is standing right in front of Natasha, scowling.

"What the hell are you doing?" he demands and Clint shows Steve a clear, plastic evidence bag, with a long, thin kitchen knife inside. There is still blood on the handle, unevenly washed out. As if someone didn't even try to wash it off.

"You are under arrest for the murders of Colin Matthews and six others. Anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of law..." Natasha starts saying, a well tried speech they all know a little too well. Steve is just staring at the scene in front of him, trying to make sense of it all.

They found the murder weapon, but even though they found the knife, where are the bloody clothes? With all that blood, the killer can't have kept his clothes clean, at all. They would have found bloody clothes in a bag somewhere, maybe in the trash or soaking in a bucket of cold water. And they probably haven't found the gun, because they would be carrying that around as well. The killer must have gotten into Bucky's apartment somehow. Maybe after they all ran upstairs when Erin called. Or maybe that is the noise that Bucky heard before they both heard Erin scream. The strange little thuds he couldn't explain.

"You only found the knife?" Steve asks and shoves the evidence bag back into Clint's hands.

"We found the murder weapon, Steve," Sam says, on edge and somewhat _too_ angry. This is not what Steve is used to. Sam is generally the calm one, even when he is angry. Steve must have really pissed him off this time. "It is not my fault that you can't see your boyfriend as a killer." Steve frowns at Sam. The words don't really match up, not at once. _Your boyfriend?_

"Except that is _all_ you found," Steve says, almost snarling the words. "Where is the rest? Murder weapon, yes. _One of them_. Where is the gun? Where are the bloody clothes? I mean, look at him, those clothes are _way_ too clean, even you should see that. Did you even try and find anything else, or did see the murder weapon and come barging in here to arrest him?" Steve chooses to ignore the boyfriend prospect, and Bucky doesn't look like he is really in the mood to complain much, not with the way he is staring at Steve, the clear panic in his eyes. "Come on, don't you think this was a little _too_ easy? Would he just forget that the damned knife is in his kitchen block? Forget to wash it off?"

"Be careful, Steve," Natasha replies coldly. "You are crossing a very thin line here." Steve has to bite his lip to keep from snarling out a reply harsher than a stormy sea. "Why do you keep lying to us? One moment you don't know each other. The next minute you live across the hall from each other, then you are lifelong friends? Now you're dating the guy?" Bucky cracks a smile of the tortured kind, as he looks at Steve. _You wish_. Any backlash from Bucky would hurt Bucky's case, so he stays silent. But for backtalk, they can't hurt Steve much. If that were the case, a _lot_ of their conversations would be liable to get at the very least one of them suspended.

"We're not dating," Bucky replies before Steve can get a chance to think of a snarky reply. "Friends, yes but we don't l..." He stops there, half a heartbeat. "We’re not together." Steve knows exactly which words fit into the pause. ' _We don't love each other like that'_. Except, Steve's not sure that he doesn't. Clint pushes Bucky towards the door, meanwhile Sam is looking down on the whiteboard with renewed interest. Of course, the team hasn't seen his 'evidence' yet. Sam kneels down by the board and inspects it.

"Don't mind if I take that with a grain of sand," Natasha notes duly. "We've been hearing a lot of lies surrounding you, James, particularly when Detective Rogers is involved." Bucky's eyes shoot daggers at her. Cold and calculating.

"Come on, man," Clint says. "Let's take the elevator down. We can take this down to the station, without so many people there to see it." A very smart idea, given the situation. He wouldn't want to take stairs with a hand-cuffed person ahead of him. And the crime scene guys _are_ looking rather confused with the whole situation.

"Wait a minute, Clint," Sam mumbles, and takes one of the pictures off of the whiteboard. It is a recent picture of Bucky's, taken just hours before he took a plane to Moscow. It's Bucky with the sunlight reflecting on the metal arm, causing a sort of lens flare. He had been packing his bag, trying to figure out just what he was missing; socks, it turned out. Steve had taken the photo mostly because he thought it was pretty, but also because he wanted to draw it. Not that he ever got properly started; he couldn't find the proper color of red to use, and with Bucky gone and their Skype calls so infrequent, he never did find the time to ask him which of the reds he owned was closest. They're all just hues of blues to him. And while he would usually just use the blues he sees it in, this picture just asks for warmth. "This is you, right?" Bucky's eyes tighten slightly as if he's trying to identify it. Steve doesn't always tell Bucky when he takes photographs, especially if he wants that particular photograph to look natural. He usually mentions them _after_ they're taken, but maybe he forgot with this one. Bucky doesn't generally mind it, but he's always a little pickier if they are taken when he’s not wearing any type of cover for the arm. ' _But they're you,' Steve would complain. 'They're the actual you that you keep hidden away from others. They're just for me. I am not going to post anything to Facebook or Instagram.'_ And Bucky would smile that little smile and say: ' _What use are all those pictures you take, going to be if you never post any of yourself? You're gonna end up like Grandpa Charles and have hundreds of photos of others, but when it comes down to it you don't have a single picture of yourself.'_ Except, Steve does have photos of himself. Like the one he uses for his Instagram profile picture; a simple one with Steve at Coney Island, camera hanging around his neck and staring off into the distance at the waves crashing into each other. Bucky had taken that one without Steve's knowledge and Steve loved it the moment he set eyes on it.

"Yeah, that's me." Steve knows the sarcastic remark Bucky bites back; something about the NYPD's finest needing a pair of glasses, maybe. Sam points at the metal.

"Photoshop?" he asks, and it seems almost confused.

"What? No, Steve is not _that_ good at Photoshopping things. That’s my actual arm," Bucky sighs and he really doesn't sound happy with it. "They don't know, do they Steve? Just show the guy." Steve nods wryly and steps away from Natasha. Bucky hates showing anyone the metal arm, he keeps the sleeve on even when he is with his family. Showing Sam and the others was obviously not his plan; they weren't supposed to know. Steve gets right up in Bucky's personal space and Bucky slacks off a little. Less like a soldier at attention, more like... well... Steve has nothing to compare this to. There is some relief in there, relief and panic and plain old feeling lost. Damn it. Steve gently moves the edge of Bucky's shirt aside, never once looking away from Bucky's face. He strips the edge of the cover away from the metal part it clicks into, displaying the edge of the shoulder plate. Clint and Sam have both stepped away a little bit, but come closer to stare at it. Like Bucky is some kind of circus attraction. _Five bucks to see the metal man_. Steve gives them half a minute before he clicks the cover right back into place.

"It is a cover," Bucky explains. "My flesh arm is now a pile of ash on the bottom of some hospital incinerator." He says it lightly, like it doesn't really matter to him. But nothing is less true. "If you want to know the specifics of the metal one, ask Stark. He can tell you everything he knows, which is more than I do and he will want to talk to you a lot more than I do. Shouldn't be hard to find, he practically lives in your department now, doesn't he?" Sam sticks the photo back where it came from and nods, but it is strained.

"Barnes, we'll need you to point out where you keep your gun," Natasha replies. "Steve, do yourself a favor. Pack all this up and transfer it to the whiteboard at the station. You've got _one_ shot at this. If this is nothing worth, then you _will_ be kicked off of the case."

"Understood."

"Then go."

 

 

 

 

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Steve arrives at the station long before the rest of the team makes it back. With Bucky and the three other detectives crammed into one police cruise, it mustn't be a very nice trip. Not for Bucky or the rest. Steve thought that maybe he could be reasonable about this. It would make a _lot_ of sense that they would arrest Bucky sooner or later. After all, with all the evidence they have, it's a miracle that he hasn't been arrested earlier.

Looking at it now, as he sticks photos to a whiteboard, it is a lot more distracting than he thought it would be. Is Bucky okay? Is the rest of the team questioning him now? He scratches the back of his neck before slapping on the last photograph. When everything is laid out, on as big a whiteboard as they have... It does _not_ feel like it is enough. At all. Even with the annotations copied over, written like they were Steve’s and not Bucky’s, the board is empty. And it doesn’t get much better than this.

Steve used to like doing this. Being alone in their part of the station, working out cases long after the others had gone home, or long before the rest of the gang got there. He’d put on some music, grab a new cup of coffee and try and figure out the kinks in old cold cases. Growing up with ‘ _Cold Case’_ gave him the idea that this would be backbreaking work, but rewarding work; that no matter how old the case, no matter how long it took, new evidence would emerge and they would find the killer. Steve's never actually found anything new when he went through old case files, but he hasn't lost hope just yet. Not all of it, anyway.

Now? The empty station only reminds Steve of what might be. Only reminds him that if he is very alone, right now. He still gets his Bluetooth speaker from his desk drawer and plays a song, to lift his spirits. America’s Sweetheart by Ellie King is a no-brainer. He plays it on a loop whenever he’s upset and knows it better than any other song, at this point. Steve doesn't intend to get pulled into the song like this, but if there has ever been a song Steve can't help but sing along to then it is this one.

" _You try and change me you can go to hell! Cause I don't want to be nobody else! I like the chip I got in my front teeth and I got bad tattoos you won't believe_ ," he sings full of conviction and without realizing he is very much not alone anymore. Steve turns around when he hears Clint’s unmistakable chuckle, and blushes at once. He isn’t a good singer or dancer and having anyone else see it just causes unnecessary awkwardness. Bucky has heard him sing, but Bucky is Bucky. The rest... he would have rather no one actually heard him.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, and rushes to turn the music off. “I didn’t realize that you were back yet.”

“Obviously,” Clint replies, smug. “Which bad tattoos, Rogers?”

“Shut up,” Steve mumbles, although he _does_ have a tattoo, it isn't one that he thinks is particularly bad, or that he regrets at all. He has the words ‘ _You are more than what you have become’ written beneath his left collarbone. It is a reference to his dad with whom he must have seen ‘the Lion King_ ’ hundreds of times. No matter how tough his father liked to act, every single time he would tear up when Mustafa died. Steve misses that more than anything. He does want a second tattoo and he knows where he wants it, but he hasn’t settled on a design yet. He keeps going back and redesigning it, each time he comes up with something wholly different, but he likes all of them. The only sort of design he keeps coming back to and really wants, is based around Bucky’s arm and well... Steve isn’t sure how Bucky would take that. He has yet to bring up the subject. Now is _not_ the time.

“What? You have a tattoo?” Sam asks, surprise making his voice an octave higher. “We have been working together for _years_ and yet you have never told me you have a tattoo.” Hasn’t he? Yet another thing that he just forgot to mention. He is really getting bad at keeping people in the loop lately.

“I do,” Steve replies. “Only one of them for now. Need to discuss the other one with _someone_ first.” It doesn’t take them long to realize who someone is, but they’re letting the comment slide for now. Steve’s not sure whether he’s grateful for that, or just wants to bury his face into a pillow and scream. Both, probably.

Natasha has moved over towards the whiteboard, carefully taking it all in. Except for a ‘ _huh_ ’ or a soft hum, she stays completely silent. It is nerve-wrecking to Steve, to see her do that. He can’t read her. At _all_. She might be thinking about how foolish Steve is to believe it, or maybe that his points are valid. She might be laughing at him without showing it in her face.

“Why isn’t this him?” she asks, and Steve startles just a little. At the very least, she sounds like she wants to give him the benefit of the doubt. If that leaves him long enough.

“The coat,” Steve replies, choosing the coat first, before the rest because that is the one that is the most easily explained. “Bucky never had one like that. It is too long and the arms are too slim. Especially the metal arm wouldn’t fit.” Natasha’s eyebrows rise slightly.

“ _A coat_?” she asks, incredulous. “You are going off of a coat?” Steve sighs and grabs the picture he’s been keeping in the drawer of his desk. It is a picture of Steve, Alexander and Bucky; Steve is wearing his NYPD uniform, right after his first day of work. His mother had insisted on taking the picture of her ‘ _three sons_ '. It’s too close to see properly, but it is the only picture of Bucky Steve has on hand that has the coat that looks like the one in the picture. Unless he wants to go through the pictures on his phone, but there is something telling him that it is really not a good idea. He also takes the picture from the whiteboard and puts both pictures next to each other on the table. Laid out side by side, the difference is clearer than without. At least that is something.

“I'm not only going off of the coat, nut it is the clearest difference. Look,” Steve replies. “Look at that. This is the only coat Bucky has that looks remotely like that one. And it is _inches_ too short. Look at angle of the nose as well, the shape of the jaw. It’s not him.” Clint comes closer to look at the pictures, squints at them. “Weight doesn’t match up either. This guy... he’s _skinny_. Bucky isn’t big, but he’s got muscles. Got to have muscles to counterbalance the weight of the arm.” Natasha doesn’t look very convinced yet, but at the very least she doesn’t look as annoyed as she was before. Maybe Steve does have a shot.

“That is a longshot, Steve,” Sam replies. “I can see it. It is inconsistent. But if you want to convince a jury, we need more.” Steve sighs and he shifts his focus to the photograph of the ring.

“I asked him about this. This ring is apparently very expensive and very exclusive. Bucky a) doesn’t have one, and b) the only one he has ever seen or touched, belongs to a guy on the second floor of the building. That’s where it must have gotten the fingerprint. I don’t know how it got onto the crime scene, but maybe we should ask the guy on the second floor that, rather than Buck.” Steve taps the second photo, the one of the print of the bullet. “This is a match to the left thumb, a thumb that is now made entirely of metal.” Sam shakes his head. “And before you say it, the cover he wears isn’t fingerprinted at all. It is some type of special material that allows for him to hold onto things without needing the ridges.” There still are folds in the ‘skin’ of course, but they are there for realism’s sake. He doesn’t really need them to take a hold of things. Earlier versions of the cover all worked with different materials, different kinds of folds and they all looked extremely weird. One of the first versions was bright blue and anything but flexible enough for use. With it, Bucky looked like an overgrown Smurf. Steve knows that they're lucky that Stark could find something to cover the metal, even luckier still that Stark felt guilty enough to make the actual arm. At the very least, this way Bucky has a choice. He has a semblance of normalcy. Sometimes Steve wonders about that. Wonders if maybe Bucky would have found it easier to come to terms with a stump. The metal only seems to make him feel like a freak. There are days when he has the metal arm and is okay with it. But they are far too rare.

"These could be old prints, Steve," Natasha replies. She steps away from the desk and sits down on her office chair, a bright red one she brought from home. "Especially if the silicone cover doesn't make any prints. Any handling of them wouldn’t even have left a mark."

"I know," Steve replies, a little hopeless. "I have thought of that. But, an old print wouldn't be so clear. It would have faded over time. This one... It is like someone left it there. And it is only a partial match too. Besides, Bucky is right-handed. He never loads his gun using the left. Not even during the war. I’ve seen him load right with a gushing wound all over his right arm. It does not match up. Just doesn’t." Sam scowls at Steve, or maybe he is just trying to take it all in, trying to see it the way Steve does.

“You’re saying is that someone is setting him up?” he asks and runs both hands through his face. “ _Steve_ , come on. Why would someone target him?” This was to be expected, really. He’s asking a lot out of them. A hell of a lot.

“I don’t know, okay? I don’t know who is or why they would target him. I’m just saying that there are so many little flaws and mistakes. Give him the benefit of the doubt here. At the very least until the rest of the evidence gets processed.”

“Steve. You promised us earlier that you would stay impartial,” Natasha replies. “Is _this_ impartial?

“It is,” Steve replies. “I _am_ impartial, as much as anyone can be in this situation. Look, I can see you doubt me or don’t believe me. Just let me go down to Bucky. Then you guys can decide whether you want me here or not without me being here to make you tiptoe around subjects. Do what you think is best. If you decide, you know where I will be.” He grabs one piece of evidence from the bag they brought with them from the crime scene: an old, creased letter.

 

Steve has always hated going down to the holding cells. The cell block is too dark, too lifeless in a way. It is so drained, monochrome. Seriously depressing too. None of the people in the holding cells want to be there, the guards don’t like guarding the place, and it is too clean. Way too clean.

Steve greets the guards by the door and gets let through straight away. He pauses in the middle of the hallway, Bucky’s cell is at the end of the block, but that is not what makes Steve stop. It’s the shimmer of metal. They must have even taken the arm cover. Damn them. Bucky is the only one in the cell block, there is a one other guy in the cell block at the time, a teenager they’d picked up that morning for stealing someone’s wallet. The kid’s asleep in his cell, snoring loudly. Louder than Steve would have thought possible for such a small kid.

“ _Steve_ ,” Bucky says. “Hey. There you are. I was wondering when you’d show up.” Steve smiles weakly and walks up to Bucky’s cell. There aren’t exactly any seats nearby so Steve sits down on the ground in front of the cell. Bucky’s sitting down too, back against the concrete wall. “Is that comfy?”

“No, not really. But I’m not about to go and ask them for a chair. Anyone else wouldn’t get one,” Steve replies and leans back a little. Not any more comfortable, but gives him a vague semblance of it. If he tries hard enough to imagine the ground is a soft pillow, it will eventually _feel_ comfortable. “The rest of the team is deciding my faith, right now. So, I ducked down here. That’s not something they want me there for.” And he sounds somber enough for Bucky to close his eyes slowly and sigh. This is _his_ worst case scenario and it is playing out nightmare style.

“They’re going to kick you off the investigation,” he says, doesn’t even ask. And his voice sounds so final. Like he’s thought this through already and he’s come by the outcome he was expecting all along. The worry is so clearly there on Bucky’s face that Steve has to look away. Of course he’d be worried. Steve is Bucky’s only shot at freedom. At clearing his record, the only one willing to believe him when it comes to being set up. The only one Bucky’s opened up to. Prison is _not_ where Bucky belongs. But that sight, Bucky in jail, is in the back of both their minds.

Steve sighs. “Maybe. It all depends. I think Clint was more convinced than the others are, he’ll probably rule in my favor. And well, Sam is the type of do-gooder to give people the benefit of the doubt. I think he might be willing to at least consider it. The problem is Tasha. I can’t get a hold of her. One moment I think she will definitely allow me to stay, the other I’m considering that she’s out to get me.”

“She’s the one that speaks Russian?” Bucky asks. “Tough person. Seemed right about done with you. Can’t say I blame her. You’re an annoying person, Rogers, or at the very least you can be.” Steve scowls even though he knows it is true. No one has ever gone up to Steve to tell him he is the nicest guy in the world. No one ever will. He’s a challenge, for most people.

“Yeah, that’s her. Can’t say I blame her either,” Steve replies. “And they’ve got a point. Even if they agree that I can be kept in the investigation; they’ll probably ask me all kinds of questions I don’t want to answer. Questions about you, or what happened. I don’t know. Things you don’t like to talk about yourself.” Bucky smirks.

“You know, I think I would rather you talk about it,” he replies. “It is easier for me, than talking about it myself. And, let’s face it. You almost know the story as well as I do.”

“And, Steve... You can just not-answer it but I got one question for you.” Steve raises his eyebrows. Something he doesn’t want to answer? There are very little of those around. Bucky has never done that before.

“Shoot.”

“Why don’t you ever correct people when they assume that we are dating?” Steve pauses. This is probably the last question that Steve had expected. “And I’ve noticed. It is not just one time. Earlier when your colleagues assumed that we were dating, you didn’t correct them. That one time your ma took the lot of us – you, Alexander and I – to Coney Island, and we stayed in that crappy hotel with the cracked sink? You didn’t correct them either and we ended up having to share a tiny bed because you didn’t say ‘ _no, we’re not dating’_. Year before we shipped out, wasn’t it?” Steve smiled. He had forgotten about that. “You’ve never once corrected any relative you met when we were out together. Trust me, I’ve noticed.”

“I don’t know,” Steve replies. Has he really never once corrected them? “I guess it is easier to say nothing than to deal with their ‘ _oh, really?’_ -stares. You know what I mean. Those people who would then look at your ma and-or my ma and smile and say: ‘ _Give it a few weeks’. And then go on to complain that ‘suddenly everyone is gay_ ' and that ‘ _Queers ruin everything_ '. Judgmental to a bloody fault.” Bucky nods, vaguely. It’s _part_ of the reason, but definitely not the only reason. He has always figured that maybe, if he denied it too much, it felt like Bucky would think that Steve doesn’t ever think it is a possibility. Either way, denying always felt wrong.

“Your co-workers too?” he asks Steve. “They don’t seem to be very judgmental.” Steve just shrugs. He can’t fully explain it. It never even occurred to him to lie about it. It just... happened.

“I was going to,” Steve lies. “Once I had processed that they were handcuffing you. You beat me to it,” Steve replies. “Why would I get the reflex to deny it if you keep denying it for me?” Bucky considers that for a moment.

“That’s all?” Steve _really_ does not want to do this right now. Not with Bucky in a cell, and a rowdy teenager sleeping five feet away from him, with guards watching the security footage every minute.

“Let’s not do this now, okay?” Steve asks, slowly. He refuses to look at Bucky, stares at a spot a few inches next to him. Hopefully, he doesn’t notice. “But, yeah. That’s all.”

“Don’t worry,” Bucky replies. “Won’t bug you about it.” Steve lets the letter he is still holding fall to the ground, it doesn’t slide very far, but Steve can barely stop it from sliding into the cell behind him. “What are you holding?”

“They took this, as evidence. I figured they have no right to it.” He runs his fingers over the paper, the ink bled out so much that they have become hard to read. Bucky shakes his head.

“They don’t,” Bucky grumbles. “They don’t have any right to it at _all_. How is it even evidence? This got nothing to do with any type of killing. Wait...” Bucky’s face darkens into a scowl. “They _read_ this?”

“I don’t know,” he replies. “I hope they haven't." Bucky does not look very pleased with this at all.

“What are they going to do next, interrogate my plants? Arrest Dimka...” he says, and then seems to realize just what he has said. “ _Dimka!_ Damn it, who’s going to take care of him now?” _Dimka_. Why hadn’t Steve thought of that before? Right now, he is alone in Steve’s apartment without any food or water, or toys. _Great_.

“I’ll see if Alexander can take care of him for a bit. Probably good for those kittens of his,” Steve replies. “If that’s okay with you. Or maybe your ma, does she still have cat stuff around?” The last cat the Barnes’s had died around a year ago, at a very old age. None of them had actually known how old the cat was, it was an adult by the time they got it from the pound and then stayed with them for another twelve years.

“I don’t know,” Bucky replies, he has leaned his head back against the concrete wall. “Mom has always said that say that she wanted another cat... she might have them around, yeah. Alexander has such a small apartment already, does he even have enough room for Dimka?”

“I don’t know. Just thinking off the top of my head. I’ll call your ma. I know you aren’t actually allowed to call while in jail, but well... if you end up being here and I happen to have my phone on speakerphone...” Bucky smiles.

“Damn it, Rogers, you are _trying_ to piss someone off, aren’t ya?” He doesn’t sound like he wants to kick Steve in the head for it, a win.

“You know me,” Steve replies, as he grabs his phone from his pocket. ‘ _America’s Sweetheart_ ’ is still staring at him from his music app. It brings a small, mischievous smile to his face. “What’s so fun about boring?”

“Call her,” Bucky says, choosing to ignore the question, “just make sure you don’t get into trouble for this, pal. Don’t want you to lose your job because you wanted to help me.” Steve doesn’t even reply, he just scowls at Bucky and scrolls through his contacts to ‘ _Winifred_ ’.

“Winifred Barnes, speaking.” Winifred picks up on the second ring, in the background Steve can hear a toddler excitedly make one syllabled sentences: ‘ _da, da da_!’ He smiles at once; this has to be little Adam, Peter’s one-year-old son. Steve puts the phone on speaker, and Bucky gets up to sit closer to the bars to hear properly and be heard.

“Good morning, Winifred! Hope we’re not interrupting you,” Steve replies, and smiles a little at Adam giggling.

“Mornin’ boys,” Winifred says cheerily. “What’s the occasion?” Steve doesn’t know how Winifred knows that he’s with Bucky, not that it isn’t usually a 50-50 chance that they are somewhere together, if they are not working. Neither of them are usually working at this hour.

“Nothing much, ma,” Bucky says. “Just wanted to ask you something. Do you still have Dexter’s old stuff?”

“I think so, yes, they’re in the garage,” Winifred agrees, but then gets cut off. “ _Adam_.”

“Adam phone!” the one-year-old exclaims happily. Bucky laughs, and Adam on the other end of the line giggles along. Steve has to bit his lip to keep from grinning at it. He hasn’t seen Adam since Adam was barely beginning to crawl around, and it is a little bit of a shock to already hear him talk. He didn’t realize Adam was getting old enough to talk already.

“Adam, can you give the phone to grandma?” Bucky asks patiently.

“Нет,” Adam replies stubbornly. “ _My phone_.” But Winifred manages to coax it out of his hands anyway.

“Okay. Adam’s distracted,” she finally says. “He’s watching ‘ _Go, Diego, go’_ with Teddy the lion. I do think Dexter’s old stuff is in the garage, though. Why?” This is the one thing that they haven’t thought about at all. Telling Winifred might be good in the long run, but having Winifred worried like this... it wasn’t necessary at all.

“Steve and I both got the rest of the week off,” Bucky lies easily, eyes staring daggers at Steve. “Figured we’d go down to Morita’s for the week. Can’t leave Dimka alone for that long. Can you take care of him?” When Winifred finds out, she _will_ be mad. But anger after the fact is a lot better than what they have to work with otherwise. She is a true force to be reckoned with. If you have five kids, half of them having to go through being the new kid in an entirely new country, worrying about how they are feeling becomes a second nature.

“Sure,” she replies. “I’ll dig them up from the garage. When do you drop him off?” Adam doesn’t appear to like being silent all that well.

“Папа plane?” the little boy asks when an airplane flies over low, the rumbling sound barely audible over the phone speakers, but still there. Winifred chuckles.

“No, Папа is in Prague. He’ll be back in two days... Yes, two whole days.” There’s something entirely different about Winifred’s ‘children’s voice’, it’s light and musical and a lot more accented than her regular speaking voice.

“I’ll drop him off on my lunch break,” Steve replies. “Around half past twelve? If that’s okay.” This plan has _many_ flaws. Winifred should know that Bucky does _not_ have a week off, especially after a two week vacation.

“Adam and I will be here all day, until Alicia gets off work,” Winifred says. “If you want, we can go pick him up.” Steve has never heard Bucky respond so quickly in his life.

“No, no, no need. He’s at Steve’s anyway and even I ain’t got a key for that one yet.” Of course, Bucky wouldn’t be able to explain any of the police tape across his door, or the reason why they aren’t allowed to go up to the seventh floor.

“Yes you do,” Steve protests. “You have the key I left behind for Thor. Don’t think that I haven’t noticed. He has to have given it to you, because it wasn’t in the mailbox like he promised it would be and you wouldn’t have been able to get into my apartment otherwise. Or have you become a lot better at lock picking in the past couple of weeks without telling me?” Bucky looks actually surprised at that.

“I... Well. Ma doesn’t have the key,” he says instead.

“ _Would you lot just shut the fuck up?_ ” the teenager in the other cell groans and rolls to his other side, barely managing to keep himself from rolling onto the ground. _“I’m trying to sleep here!”_ He doesn’t yell, but Winifred will have definitely heard that. If she has, she isn’t saying anything about it.

“Shut up yourself, kid,” Bucky hisses back, which he genuinely hopes that Winifred doesn’t hear this either.

“I’ll see you in a couple of hours,” Steve says, cutting through Bucky’s hissing. “I’ll take the bag of his food too. Anything else I should bring?” She doesn’t reply at once, takes a long, dragged out pause filled only by the background noise of ‘ _Go, Diego, Go_ ’. Bucky is still shooting daggers at the kid in the other cell, and something in Bucky’s expression does seem to scare the kid off, because he looks honestly petrified at this point.

“Maybe his basket, it is probably not necessary, but it’s always good to have something familiar around... Scratching pole too. I think we threw the old one out when Dexter died...”

“Okay. I will,” Steve replies. It may be a bit tricky to take it all with him on the bike, especially if he needs to take Dmitri too. But he can probably use a cruiser, if they don’t cut him out. “Need to get going to work now.

“Can you say bye, Adam?” There is a hesitant pause on the other end of the line, but Adam doesn’t reply. He just hums a little. Bucky smiles and says happily:

“Bye, Adam!” Bucky’s ‘ _I am speaking to a kid_ ’ voice is a little too adorable, Steve has to grin a little at it. “Steve, don’t be rude. Say ‘ _bye_ ’ to Adam.”

“Goodbye, Adam,” Steve says. “See you in a bit.”

“Bu-bye!” Adam echoes rhythmically. “Take cat?” Steve smiles at that. Of course, the cat is the most important deal with his.

“Yes, I’m taking Dimka with me,” he replies amusedly. “Winifred, see you in a couple of hours.”

“See you, Steve!” Steve hangs up the phone and stuffs it back in his pocket. The kid in the other cell has gone back to trying to sleep, his back turned towards Steve and Bucky. He has put his sweater underneath his head in a ball.

“Hey, kid,” Bucky says and gets up from his spot on the floor.

“ _Buck_. Come on. Leave the kid be,” Steve mutters, it is not that he thinks Bucky would be rude to the guy per se, but the kid _did_ act like a jerk earlier, so... All bets are off on this one. Bucky is generally better at anger control than Steve is. But with the way that Bucky has been thrown around all day, he might not be the most stable person. Bucky only looks annoyed at Steve though.

“Come _on_ Steve, give me a break. I am not going to yell at him," Bucky replies and Steve isn't entirely sure if he can believe him. He wants to. But he is just not sure.

"What?!" the guy exclaims, exasperated. "And for the love of God, _would you stop calling me kid_? I am seventeen." Bucky raises an eyebrow at Steve.

"Oh, good. He's practically an adult," Steve mutters but the boy must have heard, because he scowls at Steve. Bucky too, looks at Steve like he thinks Steve is an idiot.

"What am I supposed to call you then? Seventeen-year-old?" Bucky asks, eyebrows raised. The kid sighs, like he's _really_ had enough of the two of them. Steve can't bring himself to blame him.

" _Damian_. Just call me Damian." Bucky actually smiles.

"You look cold, _Damian_ ," Bucky just says and picks up his folded up jacket. Normally Bucky's jacket would have every pocket filled with random items: candy wrappers, a watch he doesn't get to wear often because jewelry isn't allowed in the hospital, his phone, a power bank, a small notebook Steve has never been allowed to look at although Bucky must have gone through four different ones in the past year alone and Steve _really_ wants to know what is on it, and at last a simple silver ring on a chain. That one just appeared; from one day to the next Bucky had a ring sticking in the jacket pocket of his fatigues, although that was certainly not up to code. He just wore it around, like it had been there all along. Steve has never actually bothered asking him about it, he just finds Bucky toying with it every once in a while.

"I'll be fine," Damian says stubbornly, but he is dressed for the top of summer, shorts that don't even reach his knees and a tank top while he is in a basement cell block deliberately kept cooler than the rest of the precinct. None of those clothes can combat the cold metal that _has_ to send shivers down his spine. Bucky hands Steve the jacket through the bars of his cell.

"Go give it to him," he says and shakes his head. "Won't be as cold." Steve nods once, and walks down the hallway to stick it through the bars. Despite his earlier claims of being 'fine', Damian gets up to get the jacket from Steve, to afterward curl in on himself on the bench, making sure that his feet don't get cold either.

"Now let me sleep," Damian grunts.

 

Steve and Bucky do let him sleep, they don't really say much after. Bucky is lost in thought, maybe memory and Steve just leans against the bars of Bucky's cell; reads through his own letter. They _might_ see a little bit of evidence in it, if Steve reads it very, _very_ carefully. There are sentences that could vouch for some type of explosiveness, issues with anger and they would see it as anger with the army for discharging him. Because Steve is the tool who tiptoed around Bucky losing an arm. Bucky read it in context, Bucky knows exactly what Steve had been tiptoeing around. The rest of the team don’t have the proper context and sentences like: ‘ _Don’t take it out on the guys, they’re just trying to help_ ’ don’t exactly sound too friendly.

“Why do you keep this on your corkboard?” Steve asks – whispering to make sure that Damian doesn’t wake up – as he folds the letter back up. He probably should just fold it up and put it in his pocket, but with the wear and tear it has already seen, that won’t make too much of a difference. Bucky sighs.

“Dunno,” Bucky whispers back, he sounds distracted. “I would read it often, after I got home from the hospital. So I kept it within reach. Didn’t know where else to keep it.” He sighs again, deeply and not very convinced at all. “I sure hope they haven’t read it.”

“It really would suck, wouldn’t it?” he agrees, half-heartedly. He looks up when he hears footsteps approaching; he’s probably not allowed to sit here like this. The guards haven’t complained yet, but you never know with those types. Clint is making his way down to where Steve is, so Steve scrambles up from his position on the floor. Bucky doesn’t really look at Clint, just glances his way and then scowls. That was to be expected, really. Steve isn’t all that surprised that he wouldn’t be very keen on Clint right now. All he can do is wait and see what the verdict is.


	5. Chapter 5

Bucky too, gets up when he notices Clint. He stands next to Steve, or would stand next to Steve if there weren’t any bars keeping him inside the cell. Steve stares at Clint as well. Waiting for the proper answer to come, waiting for Clint to finally open up his mouth and tell Steve just how screwed he is. The waiting feels like it is taking forever, even if Steve isn't sure that it actually takes forever. Clint shows no emotion on his face, just stands there and looks at Steve. At this point, he wants to drag it out of Clint letter by letter. Because damn it he does _not_ like this odd silence, this staring at him and betraying nothing with his face. Nothing at all.

"Come on, Rogers," he finally says and a smile spreads out over his face. It fits a lot better than that damned expression before. "We've got a murderer to catch." And Steve is honestly dumbfounded at this point, because not only is Clint saying ' _no, you're not off the case_ ', they also seem to want to take another approach to finding this killer. "Unless you want to stay here and chat with your... With Barnes. Your choice." _Your what?_

" _A_ murderer?" He looks at Bucky for a quick second, checking to make sure that Bucky caught that too. To make sure that he is not imagining things. Are they actually willing to look past Bucky as a suspect for maybe even a day? To give Steve a chance to fully explain? Either Steve is the luckiest person in the PD, or he is hearing things he shouldn’t. But Bucky too looks hopeful. So, maybe that isn’t the case.

“Yes, _a_ murder. You have until the rest of the crime scene clues gets analyzed to give us more of a theory. If that one pans out... Well, we’ll see.” He looks at Bucky for a short moment, but then nods at Steve. “What do you say, sound good to you?” Bucky seems assured enough that things are going to be fine, he settles down onto his own cot, lying back slightly.

“ _Yes_ ,” Steve replies, then turns back to Bucky and positively beams at him. “Don’t worry. I’m going to get you out of here.” Bucky smiles back at Steve lazily.

“Just don’t get yourself killed along the way,” he warns, the heavy tone to his voice doesn’t get fully masked. It’s meant to sound playful, just Bucky reminding Steve to take care of himself. “And don’t forget to drop Dimka off at Ma’s.” Steve nods, solemnly.

“Don’t worry about me,” Steve says. “Worry about yourself for a change.” Not that Bucky will listen. "I'll come back this evening or so." Bucky rolls his eyes.

"No. You're not," Bucky says sternly. "You are going to put all your time and energy into getting me out of this damned cell. You come back here if you need to ask me some questions and come back when your time is up if you failed in convincing the rest of the team that there are better options than me. But don't distract yourself too much." Steve shrugs and shakes his head.

“Alright, then,” Steve replies. “I’ll be back when either of those happens, then.”

 

 

 

Steve follows Clint back up to the Homicide floor, the short ride in the elevator isn’t comfortable. At all. It is too cramped a space and Clint isn’t saying anything, just staring at the floor buttons, like they’re going to jump out at him.

“Was the decision unanimous?” Steve asks to break the silence. This is not the question Clint seems to want to answer, the corner of his mouth pulls down at once and he sighs.

“Yes, eventually,” Clint replies slowly. Eventually. That would explain why it took so long. They were waiting until everyone was on the same side. One of them must have taken longer than the others. Natasha, if Steve has to bet. “It was either everyone saying yes or no one.” Everyone saying ' _yes_ ', or no one. They sent Clint down, which probably means that he is the one most willing to get Steve back on board. That surprises Steve; Clint has been very distant with the whole ordeal, he hasn't been very critical of Steve's methods, but he hasn't said anything in Steve's favor either. Not so far. Maybe he just hasn't been sharing any type of favor with Steve.

“So that’s why it took you a while,” Steve replies, level voice. He can't let too many of his feelings seep through. Not like this. “Who was holding things up?" Not the bad ones anyway. He smiles at Clint. "I care to bet that it was Natasha. She has always been the one who lost faith in me.” Clint shakes his head, a small smile on his face. If Steve is totally wrong, he isn't sure whether he wants to know at all.

“Nah, wasn’t Tasha,” he replies. “She was honestly the only one who was easy to convince. Took only a few minutes." Steve can't imagine Clint battling for his right to be in the investigation.  He wonders what kind of arguments Clint used. What would Clint say in Steve's defense?

"So it was Sam,” Steve replies uneasily. He is a little dumbfounded at that. No, more than a little, a _lot_. Sam is his partner, he is supposed to be on his side and support him. Have his back. Now to hear that Sam is the one to stop Steve from investigating a case that deals with his own best friend? Sam probably has a reason. But if he does, it had better be a damn good reason. If his reasoning is that good, Steve really, really wants to know. "Damn. You're serious?" Why didn't Sam say anything to Steve earlier in the day, say anything? He never showed any type of reverence towards Steve, never so much doubted Steve's investigation for a second. And then all of a sudden, he goes and does this.

“Hey, you’re not the only one who is surprised,” Clint replies and he looks equally confused about it. “Tasha barely took any convincing. I mean, just a few arguments and she agreed with me. I was thinking she would be more difficult to convince too, but I was so, so wrong about her. Don't tell her I told you, but she seems actually convinced that you might be right. That James is being framed. Sam though." Clint shakes his head, a very small notion that Steve barely even picks up. "I thought he’d be on your team. I didn't expect him to be so stubborn and honestly vague about it.” Steve shrugs. He would be lying if he were to say that it doesn’t bother him, because it does. Bother him more than he would like to admit. Sam is supposed to have his back. This does not feel like having his back at all. Except for the fact that Sam is holding a knife to it.

“Took a while, didn’t it?” he asks instead. “To convince him?” The elevator arrives on the right floor before Clint has a chance to reply. Just seconds after the door slide open, Steve is already out of the elevator. If he’s only got limited time to make this work, he’s going to milk it for all he’s got and he needs to make sure that he can get everything out of the way if he wants any chance at getting them to trust him again, then he needs to show them that he has more than a vague message. That he has more than just a coat on a picture and a print that doesn't match up. Sam is hiding his stubbornness now, he's just got that vague half-smile that seems to be his default expression, and he doesn't really look at Steve but look _through_ Steve.

"Steve," Natasha says. "Welcome back." _Welcome back indeed_. Steve nods slowly and earnestly.

"Thank you," he replies. " _Really_. I seriously appreciate this."

"What do you want to do first?" Sam asks. Steve isn’t used to being the one in charge of the investigation, doesn’t generally have to make the decisions for the rest of the team. It feels strange. Stranger than it felt like having the command over his little department.

“I think we should see about this ring first,” Steve replies. “Go and find that one store that sells them. Maybe they have kept a record of the people that bought this type of ring.” There can’t be too many people that have bought this keyboard.

“Let’s go to Maylands then,” Sam says and shoves his office chair back from his desk. “See what they can find out.” _Maylands?_ When did they find out which store it is from? _Oh, well_. He’s not going to make a big deal out of this. They barely had a chance to tell him that they came back with a result.

“Let’s go,” Steve agrees, but the thought of spending that much time alone with Sam makes him somewhat tense. Bucky is a big part of Steve’s impulse control. If he could, he would go to Bucky to get mad about Sam ad then he wouldn’t even really have anything to say to Sam because it would all be off of his shoulders and dealt with. He does not know how long he can keep it all in without bursting. Probably not until tomorrow, or the day after. Whenever the rest of the clues get analyzed. Clint takes one look between Steve and Sam and says:

“You are sure that you don't need another person along?" Sam scoffs.

"It doesn't take three people to ask one person questions, Clint," he replies. "We will be fine on our own."

"We won't kill each other,” Steve promises. Sam grabs his keys from the corner of his desk and leaves. Steve follows him towards the stairs, only hoping that he can keep that promise.

 

 

 

Surprisingly, Steve does not strangle Sam on their way there. He doesn’t even say anything about the conversation he’s had with Clint, even though they even talk about Bucky a little. It’s a sore spot for Steve, and he is curter than he should be, but if it bothers Sam, Sam isn’t saying anything about it. Sam informs him of more evidence they’ve found, like the chip of black nail polish that a nurse pulled out of Mike Thompson’s neck wound. By far the best piece of news Sam tells Steve is that Mike Thompson is going to make it. His leg wound got infected but the medication has been working and he is getting better, more and more each day. Steve’s more relieved about this than he thought he would be, even though he hasn’t met Mike, he doesn’t want more victims. They pull up to the jewelry store an hour after they leave, later than they should arrive but the traffic around noon is terrible. The one reason Steve likes taking the subway: no traffic. Okay, he always needs to squeeze into a very small space with a lot of strangers and some days he needs to take a later train because there are too many people trying to get in, but when he takes a later train back and sits in the nearly empty night trains, it is the most relaxing way to go through town. Sam is a _saint_ , honestly. He never once curses, never makes any sort of complaint even when the traffic is so backed up they don’t move an inch for over ten minutes.

Finding an empty parking spot near Times Square is a lot more difficult than it is in Brooklyn, barely outside of Steve’s apartment building. They circle around for fifteen minutes, trying to find a parking spot close to the jewelry store, they finally settle on a spot that’s a twenty-minute walk away. Steve figures that the Starbucks three quarters of the way there is more than worth it. If they stop for coffee on the way back.

“We’ll stop on the way back,” Sam promises when he sees Steve’s longing gaze the first time they pass it. “Just don’t spill your coffee in the cruiser. I am the one who has to clean it.”

“If I spill, _I_ will be cleaning the stain. Don’t worry about it.” Steve checks his watch for the time. Eleven AM. No way they’ll be back in time to drop off Dimka at Winifred’s. “Do you mind if we stop by my apartment on the way back to the station? Need to drop off Dmitri.” Sam looks up;

“Yeah, sure,” Sam replies distractedly, as they enter the jewelry store. “I thought his name was Dimka?” Steve just nods. Half of the diminutives don’t make any sense to him either. He’s come to accept them by now though.

“Yeah. Dmitri turns into Dimka. It’s his nickname,” Steve replies. He lets his eyes wander around the shop, It is a relatively small store, there are only six display cases, filled with watches and rings, geared more towards men than towards women. There are a few bracelets, lying huddled together in a corner of one of the display cases. From the counter it is easy to get a view of the whole shop. It must make taking care of security a hell of a lot easier. It is by no means as flashy as the more high-end stores, but it certainly does fit a certain niche.

“That does not any make sense,” Sam replies stubbornly. The salesman in the store steps out from behind the counter to greet that, that small retail smile on his face. His nameplate says: _E. Ramirez._

“How can I help you gentlemen?” he asks. Steve’s already grabbing his identification from his back pocket to show it, by the time Steve has it pulled out of his pocket, Sam’s already holding up his own identification.

“NYPD, sir,” he replies. “Do you have the time to answer some questions?” Steve’s eyes wander to the watches on display; he’s still looking for a birthday gift for his brother, and a watch is something Alexander might be able to use, after all he keeps showing up late to whatever thing they invite him to and he’s never seen the guy wear a watch, not since they were children. Steve however, does _not_ have three hundred dollars to spend on a single watch. Best to go look at another store.

“Of course,” Mr. Ramirez replies. “Of course I do.” Sam hands the picture of the ring over and Mr. Ramirez takes a long look at it. “How can I help you?”

“Do you sell these rings, Mr. Ramirez?” Steve asks the guy.

“I do.” The answer comes quickly, about as quickly as he hands the picture back to Sam. “These are made to order. I sold one exactly like this one a couple of weeks ago. Second time the guy bought that same ring. I can look up the records for you.”

“You did?” Steve asks, intrigued. For a second time? Maybe, to make up for losing it, the actual killer came back to order a new one before anyone else could notice that the ring was missing. “Whom did you sell them to?” Ramirez walks back to the counter and wakes up the computer standing there.

“Let me just find the file for you,” he says, slowly and focused. “Got it. Sold the last one to a guy named Daniel Michaels. Titanium meteorite ring. Inscribed with ‘ _For J.’_ ” Steve turns to Sam. ‘ _For J’? Who is J?_ Sam just shrugs. “I sold another ten of these types of rings. Shall I print these records for you?”

“It would be greatly appreciated,” Steve replies and a printer that must be underneath the counter starts whirring, spitting out paper.

“Do you remember anything about this guy?” Sam asks. “Anything that stood out?”

“Hmm,” Ramirez mutters. “Nothing special. He was Caucasian, tall. He’d hurt himself. Three of his fingers were taped together. Right hand, I think.” Steve scribbles it down on the reporter’s notebook he keeps in one of the pockets of his jacket. Ramirez grabs the paper from the printer and hands it over to Sam.  There’s maybe ten pages in total, each one for a specific order. Photocopies of the handwritten orders, written in surprisingly neat handwriting. They won’t have any issues trying to read the copies, at the very least.

“Thank you,” Sam says. “We’ll be in touch if we have further questions.”

      

 

 

The line at Starbucks is longer than when Sam and Steve walked past it earlier, but they’ve got the time to wait. No one expects them back soon, the rest of the team knows that traffic is bad, or at least they have all ventured out there in the past few days. It's nearly twelve when they get back in the car, so Steve finally texts Winifred to tell her that they’ll be later: ‘ _Still on other side of New York; will be later to drop Dimka off_ ’. He doesn't get a text back at once, but Winifred probably has her hands full trying to keep up with Adam all day. He will be getting annoying very soon, it is around time for him mid-day nap. She'll get back to him soon enough. And she _did_ say that she would be home until three PM. Adam might not like it that he doesn't get to see the cat until he goes to sleep, but Steve can't help that. Steve did make sure to give Dimka extra food before he left, he just hopes that Dmitri didn't eat all of it yet.

"Do you really think that they framed him?" Sam asks, breaking the silence that has been lingering for at least half an hour. Steve's coffee has been slowly getting colder and colder, but it is still over half-full. "That they framed James?" Steve nods without thinking, before he realizes that Sam can't see him shake his head. Not if he is driving with the safety rules in mind.

"I do," Steve replies. "It is the only thing that makes sense to me. And I _know_ , I know that you guys think it is a longshot.”

“A longshot, that’s right,” Sam replies. “If, _if_ he is being framed, someone is doing a real good job.” And Steve _knows_. He realizes just how good of a job this guy is doing. They would have seen this a lot sooner if he weren’t.

“I _know_ ,” Steve replies. “But you’ll see. I am not wrong about this.” Not wrong at all. Sam just sighs.

“You should probably know,” he says. “I haven’t been very positive about this. At all. I wasn’t going to let you come back.” Steve doesn’t say anything for a few minutes. Just dead silence. What should he say to this? What can he say to that? He can’t let his emotions guide him. He can’t get angry about this, not in the car on their way back.  “ _Steve?_ ” Steve just sighs.

“What do you want me to say, Sam?” he asks, slowly but steady. He sounds resigned and well, a little defeated at this point. Empty. Steve stares out of the car window, at the people they pass by on the street. “What am I supposed to do with that?”

“Something?” Sam replies unsure. “I am not saying that you need to do anything with it. Just. Some kind of reaction would be nice. You’re....”

“I already knew,” Steve says emotionlessly, he doesn’t turn back towards Sam. Keeps starting out of the window without seeing anything. “Clint told me when we went back to our floor of the PD.”

“You knew?” Sam asks, confused. They stop in front of a red light. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I do not want to do this now,” Steve replies stubbornly, his hand is balled into a fist against the door. It feels more like _cannot_ at this point. “I mean it.”

“Why not now? You are going to be stuck with me for another hour,” Sam retorts, he gets his hand away from the steering wheel to drink his coffee. “Come on. You know that it is going to keep bothering you.” Sam has a point, it is going to keep bothering him for a while. Whether he talks about it or not.

“Because I’ll only get worked up. If I get worked up, I won’t be able to focus on the rest of the case and if I am going to get Bucky out of there, I need to focus. We can work this out later, if we have to. But not _now_.” Sam’s jaw clenches, his eyes tighten a little, but he doesn’t have more of a chance than that to get Steve to do anything because the light changes back to green and he needs to redirect his attention towards the traffic  and not running people over.

“Later then,” Sam replies, though it is obviously not what he wants. “But we need to talk about this. Because it is going to sour things that _really_ need to stay healthy.” Steve hates it but Sam is right. He needs to keep his friendship with Sam as healthy as possible, they need to work together and they need to work together _well_. Not a single criminal is going to be stopped by a poorly cooperating team that can’t do anything but bicker.

“Later,” Steve agrees, and goes back to staring out of the window at the passers-by on the street, blurry shapes he can’t really focus on. “Later.”

 

 

 

The rest of the ride down is tense and by the time they stop at Steve’s apartment, Steve feels about ready to crawl out of his own skin. He’s glad for the opportunity to take the elevator up to the seventh floor. On his own. Sam decided to stay in the car and Steve really doesn’t mind that one bit. He can use the peace and quiet now. He can _really_ use it.

“ _Hold the elevator!_ ” a young guy yells, running off towards the elevator from the pain lobby. The boy is carrying a laptop bag and what looks an awful lot like the overnight bag Steve would take with him on sleepovers. Steve automatically sticks his foot between the closing doors and they slide open again to let the guy in. He slows down just a little bit, to a jog instead of a full on run.

“Thanks, man,” the guy pants, as he slips into elevator. “I really don’t want to carry these up two flights of stairs.” Steve would not want to carry them up either. Not at all. When he drops the second bag onto the elevator floor, it barely even makes a sound. The one that looks like a laptop bag thuds heavily on the floor. Almost like there are weights in it. Steve raises an eyebrow. “Just some laundry.” Steve nods, slowly.

“Didn’t intend to pry,” he replies. The guy presses the button for the second floor and the elevator shoots up.

“Oh, no, that is not how I meant it at all. You’re going up to sixth? You the new renter?” Steve smiles.

“Yes. Steve Rogers,” he says and extends a hand for the guy to shake. But then he notices the bandaged up fingers. One of the bandages has blood on them. Just a small fleck, but Steve’s eyes draw to it straight away.

“Daniel, I live in 2-C,” the guy says. “I would shake your hand, but that’d be a little difficult.” Steve nods.

“Always nice to meet new neighbors,” Daniel says as the doors slide open on the second floor. He drags out his bags, barely even bothering to pick them up again. 2-C is just opposite the elevator. Must have been so easy to move into the apartment.

The sixth floor meets him with a strange sort of desolation. The only thing Steve sees is that damned police tape blocking off Bucky’s door, which they haven’t even closed properly. It stands open on a crack, anyone who wants can just walk in and steal Bucky’s TV or computer or anything else. _Relax Steve_.

The crime scene guys have left a mess to clean up. Drawers left open, random items left out on tables, a single cup lies broken on the kitchen table. Only the vague remnant of the letters ‘ _ctor’_ and ‘ _P CA’_ show which one it originally was. There is a dark stain on the floorboards where it must have fallen, where the coffee stained the wood. Part of the cup’s ear still lies in the corner of the counters, against the floor.

“ _Damn it!”_ Steve barks out, barely keeping himself from hitting the counter in frustration. They barely even bothered to clean up the spill, just picked up the broken pieces and set them on the counter. Steve looks away from the broken cup and grabs the bag of cat food from the cupboard underneath the counter. He can come back to clean up later. He can get mad _later_. Now is not the time.

Dmitri’s basket is in the corner of the room, pulled away from the wall where it originally stood. They must not have found the compartment underneath the floorboards there, or at least they did not leave it open when they did find it. Steve doesn’t know what is in the actual compartment, just knows that it is there. Curiously, he opens the compartment up, but the only thing in there is a pair of old and faded photographs and negatives. He doesn’t think that there is anything missing, and the crime scene guys probably haven’t even found it; they would have taken the negatives at once. Steve also grabs the scratching pole and the basket and makes it out of the apartment, making s ure to lock the door behind himself. Only when the door is already locked does he realize that he should have grabbed the travel case as well, if he doesn’t want to lose Dimka along the way. That can wait a little bit, he should probably put the stuff in his apartment first. No use carrying it all around. Again. And he should really check in on the poor cat, make sure that it didn’t scratch his couch or got stuck behind something.

“Dimka! Where are you, boy?” Steve yells, once he is in his dark and empty apartment. He kept the curtains closed this morning to avoid the sun heating everything up too much. Dmitri, however, _loves_ the sun. And he especially loves lounging in the sun. So it is no surprise to Steve when he sees a bushy tail hanging from one of the window ledges. “There you are. Now, stay there, okay?” Dimka’s tail sways a little. So Steve smiles and drops the basket by the door to get the carrier.

Dmitri _does not_ like the carrier one bit. He’ll go in if he is given treats, but his back is arched and his tail set high. Steve can’t blame him, he is a big cat and the carrier is not actually big enough to fit him comfortably, the way he fit when he was a kitten. On the elevator ride down, Steve doesn’t get any company, but no one really fits into the elevator with him, not with the cat basket, carrier, food and scratching pole. He does not mind it so much and at the very least Sam gets out of the car to open the door for him, at least when he sees that Steve is struggling not to drop anything.

“Thanks,” Steve says as he passed Sam. “Can you put Dimka on the backseat for me?” Sam nods and grabs the carrier carefully, his arms go down a little. He must have underestimated the weight of the cat.

“ _Oof_. He’s heavy,” Sam remarks and lifts up the carrier up a little. “You’re not going to try to scratch me, are you? Little orange ball of fluff.” Steve has probably the most confused look he has worn in a long time. Sam talks to Dimka like he were talking to a baby. It’s amusing, really amusing and Steve can’t help but smile. “ _Oh,_ I called Tasha and Clint. They’re looking into Michaels now.”

“Yeah, he is,” Steve says, as he tries to pry open the trunk of the car without dropping everything onto the pavement. The trunk does _not_ want to be opened. Sam hurries over and opens it up for Steve. “Thanks.”

Winifred only lives fifteen minutes away, in an old but charming townhouse. She’s all smiles and warm words, insists on them stopping for a cup of coffee or tea but they have to decline. Adam is asleep, but the ravage he’s left in toys us apparent even in the hallway, Winifred nearly trips over a wayward and worn football, the exact same one they would play soccer with in the yard when they were kids, Rebecca always beat them, even when she had only Peter for backup and she was a couple of years younger than the rest of them.

“You and Yasha have fun at Coney,” Winifred tells Steve when he gets back into the car. She sounds a little suspicious. “Stop by when you get back!” Steve promises to do that at once, barely even stopping to consider that he might have to go to her alone and tell her the ugly truth they’ve been hiding all along. She _will_ kill him for lying about this. And probably revive him to kill him a second time. George... He might not take it as kindly either. But Steve’s been avoiding him for so long now that he might as well continue doing that. Sam waits until they are on their way back to the precinct, until they are miles and miles away before he asks, he doesn’t ask outright in front of Winifred. And even then, he asks very unassuming. If Steve wants to lie, if he wants to say: ‘ _no, none of your business._ ’, then it will be okay with Sam. He will _not_ mind it whatsoever. Or at least, that is what it usually means.

“Coney Island?” He asks. “I didn’t know Coney Island got relocated to the cellar of the 71st precinct.” _Cellar_ isn’t really the right term for it, there are two more floors below the cell block, both of them filled with all the old paper case files, but the cell block is the first floor down.

“Now you know,” Steve replies quickly, trying not to sound too strained. “Trust me, you do _not_ want Winifred Barnes to know that Bucky is in jail. If you do, then there will be no peace for either of us. She’ll find the best lawyer in all of Brooklyn, whether she can pay it or not, and she’ll worry herself sick trying to make sure that he gets out. She’s like a mother lion. Very fierce.” That isn’t very apparent when you first look at Winifred. She’s got a kind face, is short and curvy; everything about her says that she is a sweet and caring woman. The first time Steve saw her really upset, he had to do a double take. When she gets mad, she is a _lot_ scarier than George Barnes can get on a bad day.

“Wouldn’t want that, no,” Sam replies, eyes focused on the road. He can’t repress cursing when a pedestrian crosses in the middle of the road without looking if there is any incoming traffic, and slams the breaks to avoid running the person over. The pedestrian doesn’t even look back. Just keeps on walking. “He _should_ get a lawyer though.”

“And where would he get one?” Steve asks at once, sighing. Without Dimka’s cage to hold on to, he doesn’t know where to leave his hands. Wherever he rests them - on his knees, on the windowpane - it feels like they don’t belong there. He keeps twisting them together, fidgeting like an impatient child in a store or like a scared woman at the dentists. “It’s not like he is free to go to go look for them on his own time.”

“We have a registry of lawyers lying around somewhere, maybe we can get that to him. And I know a guy in Hell’s Kitchen,” Sam allows. “He should be willing to work with him, does this type of thing more often. I’m sure we can find him some type of lawyer.” Unexpected kindness. Maybe Sam is trying to make up for being so stubborn about allowing Steve back into the investigation. Whatever it is, Steve is really fine with it.

“That would be nice,” Steve says. “Thanks, Sam.” He gets his mostly empty coffee cup from the cup holder and takes a sip. It’s long cold now, but it still tastes good. Still revives him better than any cold water would be able to do. He hasn’t mentioned seeing his neighbor yet, and while he doesn’t _have_ to tell Sam, he figures that now is definitely the time to start being completely honest with Sam. And that means not holding anything back that has a slim chance of relating to the investigation. “Oh. I forgot. I saw Daniel in the elevator up.”

“The guy who bought the ring?” Sam asks, kind of surprised.

“Yeah, he lives in 2-C. Or so he told me. He came in carrying two bags, said they were just filled with laundry but when he put them on the ground, they made a _lot_ more noise than clothes could have made. It was almost like there were weights in the bag,” Steve says. “And there were blood splatters on the edge of the bandaged fingers.” The one thing that rings clear is just how blood splattered they were. The angle would match up... But why would a guy like Daniel kill? He seemed friendly enough. _Loads of people look friendly enough, Steve_. He can’t help it. He has to see the good in people. In other lines of work, it would be a good thing. Here it is just a distraction. Just another thing keeping him from going after the right people.

“He wasn’t bleeding?” Sam asks curiously. “Nothing else could explain the bleeding?”

“Not that I could see. It looked like actual splatter too. Not just some kind of bleed through,” Steve remarks. “But I don’t know what to make of it. There is more to this than meets the eye.” There is no doubt about that. Sam just hums, they’re already at the department by this time and if they’re going to turn back to ask the guy questions, they might as well do that when they’ve got the info to work with. Maybe they will find something to incriminate him along the way.

 

Natasha and Clint are adding onto the whiteboard when Sam and Steve exit the elevator. There is a very familiar picture going up on the wall: Daniel’s. It is strange seeing him up there next to Bucky. Except in the photo, his hair is blonde and a lot longer, stuck in a ponytail.

“What did you find out about him?” Steve asks as he walks back to his desk. Clint is writing down the guy’s name and age underneath the picture, very similar to the way it says underneath Bucky’s picture. Another lead.

“For one, he has a record,” Natasha replies. “Aggravated assault, possession of illegal weapons, been charged with ‘drunk and disorderly’ a couple of time, there is a DUI or two. There’s even been a case of arson.” _So much for ‘but he looks friendly’_. Arson is definitely the odd one out. “He also is a member of a local gun club. He checks out a particular type of sniper rifle a _lot_. It is very similar to the type your friend uses.” Steve cannot be the only one seeing this. He just can’t be. He looks over at Clint, but Clint is still intently staring at the whiteboard.

“Is that the order of the offences?” Steve asks. It wouldn’t make an awful lot of sense, if that were the case.

“No, the file is on my desk if you wanna know,” Clint replies. “He’s spent five years in prison for the aggravated assault and arson charge combined.” Steve grabs the file from the desk and opens it up. The criminal record is the first page it opens up to.

Drunk and disorderly is the very first offence. And the second and third ones. He was barely seventeen years old, but had so much alcohol in his system he couldn’t walk a straight line if the line were six feet wide. There is a gap, until the twenty-third of November 2006, when he torched a guy’s shed. Things went downhill fast. Within the next two years, he added on two DUI’s, on the second one they found an unregistered firearm. More cases of drunk and disorderly. It is a surprise to Steve that he never got arrested sooner. What Steve notices most of all though, is that Daniel got out of jail three weeks before the first victim fell. That _can’t_ be a coincidence; with Bucky, there is no trigger. Nothing to get this kind of behavior. What happened to this guy in 2006? Sam reads along over Steve’s shoulder and Steve tenses just a little. He can’t help tensing up. It is just another one of the annoying habits he’s always had, never been able to kick.

“He got out three weeks before the first victim was killed,” Steve says, trying to keep his voice level, but failing. “Could be a coincidence.” He _really_ , really wants it not to be the case. But the possibility is there on the back of his mind and at this point, he wants to run downstairs and tell Bucky all about this. Sam raises his eyebrows.

“You’re kidding me,” he says incredulous. “You _have_ to be. Why are you not over the moon about this?” Steve just shrugs.

“I _am_ over the moon about it. But it can _still_ be a coincidence,” Steve replies calmly. “What do we have? A ring that he owns and a criminal record. Admittedly, one that would lead up to murder, but... You know.”

“Still worth looking into,” Natasha replies. “We _will_ go and ask him about his ring. See if we can find out who this ‘ _J._ ’ person is.” She touches Clint’s shoulder to get his attention, then adds on: “We’ll go interview him. You guys just came back from there.” Clint nods.

“Second floor, right?” he asks as he walks towards the metal desk to grab his gun from its drawer. “Apartment C?”

“Apartment 2-C,” Steve agrees. There is something remotely scary about Clint holding a gun. It isn’t really scary in itself; Clint’s stupid half-amused expression always makes him look more likely to dramatically miss and hit the wall than to actually hit something. Nothing is less true. When Clint shoots, he doesn’t even stop smiling, you can barely even see that he focusses. Still, he hits every shot within half an inch of the intended target. His aim is deathly.

Where Clint excels in aim, however, he lacks in driving skills. He tends to stick _very_ close to the speed limit and pisses other drivers off on a regular basis. Steve doesn’t often ride along with him, but when they do ride with him, things tend to get a little tense. Especially when Clint turns his music up so loud the police radio is barely a muttering in the background that none of them can hear well enough to hear when they are needed. It rarely ever gets on others’ nerves, but Steve likes to know when they are needed somewhere, so he’ll ride shotgun to turn the volume down.

“We’ll call you if you find something out,” Natasha promises. “In the main time, call Tony. See if he’s found anything more.”

 

They do not need to call Tony after all. He shows up suddenly when Steve has just gone to get a cup of coffee. He’ll heed his brother’s advice to just use some iced water, later. He needs caffeine and he needs _food_ ; his stomach has been growling uncontrollably for the last ten minutes. He should have gotten something to eat at Starbucks, but his stomach wasn’t growling then. And it is not like he really is hungry. It’s just that his stomach will not stop growling and it is getting on his nerves. What he does, however, is flop down on his desk chair, mindlessly spinning this way, then that way. This way, then that way, until the world dances around him as if he is on a ship in a rocky sea.

“Afternoon, Tony,” Sam says. “Got any news for us?” Steve tries to stop his world from spinning, to see just _one_ Tony Stark that is not rocking from one side to the other. Tony just won’t stop moving. He keeps walking toward the rest of them.

“Is it?” Tony asks. “Hadn’t noticed. I _did_ find something.” Steve has never understood why Tony bothers with helping the NYPD. He’s got his millions, could live for years off of what he’s got left. Especially after he sold his father’s weapons company. However much Steve can’t understand it, he _really_ doesn’t mind it. Tony is a godsend, really.

“What did you find?” Steve asks and his stomach growls in sync. Steve pushes down on his stomach to silence it. “Sorry ‘bout that.” Tony takes over Natasha’s chair, fiddling with the height until he is happy with it, then lounges. Like this is his office, like he is settled in already. Lucky looks up from his basket in the corner. He’s got a bowl of cold water next to him and his basket is in the shadow, but it is still hot for the poor dog. In colder weather, Clint takes Lucky with him on patrols or house visits, but the booth of the car would be a sauna now. And none of them is willing to let the poor dog go through that. Especially when they won’t really need him that day.

“I did some digging into the guy’s past,” Tony says. “And damn, it is darker than those Stieg Larsson books.” Steve frowns at Tony. “And that is in the most tragic sort of way. Father abandoned mother and little Daniel before the kid was a year old. Mother remarries, has another son, then step-father dies. Cancer. The second son barely a toddler. Enter Darren Mills, Step-dad number two.” A family connection to the victims. Step family relations aren’t always perfect, even if most people don’t have wicked stepparents that are intent on killing them with poisoned apples. “Nothing serious for a while. Then the half-brother dies.” Steve casts his eyes down. _Of course_. Joshua. Daniel is Joshua's brother. “Guy was a soldier, got killed in action.”

“Joshua, right?” Steve asks. “Joshua Carter?” Tony swirls his chair in Steve’s direction.

“That’s the guy,” he agrees. “You knew him?”

“Yeah,” Steve replies grimly. Joshua... He can’t even think of the guy’s damned face, can’t remember whether it was round or square, but he can still see that blood soaked uniform, can remember the streaks of grime, blood and sweat and sand in the long blonde hair. And that damned grim expression on his face as he died. “He died very similarly to Colin. There was a _lot_ more sand though.”

“Would Collin know exactly how his brother died?” Sam asks, suspiciously. “He could be replicating the way his brother died?”

“He wouldn’t necessarily know; it all depends on who did the informing... But only the medic could really tell him everything,” Steve replies. “And that medic was there with us at that time. So, I doubt it.” And then, Steve realizes that Bucky could have easily been the main source of information. “Of course... Buck kept in contact with the family. He was pretty close with Joshua... Maybe Colin has read the letter Bucky sent. If Darren asked, I am sure that Bucky would have told him. Might be worth asking him what he knows.”

“Yeah,” Sam replies. “Does Barnes know Daniel?” Steve grabs his phone from his pocket and texts Natasha. ‘ _Daniel had a brother, Joshua. KIA. See what he knows about his brother’s death’._

‘ _Will do,’_ Natasha texts back only half a minute later.

“He has never mentioned him,” Steve says to Sam. “But that doesn’t really mean that they don’t know each other. There’s a lot he doesn’t tell me about.” He has always known that Bucky doesn’t tell him everything, he doesn’t _need_ to tell Steve anything, really. But he has never realized just how much Bucky doesn’t tell him. It’s not that Steve really minds, Bucky has a right to his secrets, the same way Steve has a right to his own.

“If he talks at all,” Tony replies. “He barely says anything if he needs a part of the arm repaired, he’ll just say ‘ _no_ ’ if I ask him if he wants some coffee. If I am even granted that much. Usually he just shakes his head or grunts and that’s it.” That does sound a lot like Bucky. He always grows tense on the days leading up to those checkups, by the time he actually has to go there, he’s a ball of nerves and stressed tied so tightly that there is barely room for anything but the stress and nerves, until he is just about ready to lash out at anyone.

“That’s not your fault,” Steve says. “He’s still very self-conscious about his arm.” Always defending Bucky even when he doesn’t need to do any defending. Stark has seen Bucky often enough, must know the difference between Bucky when he’s got the cover on and Bucky on a lab table being ‘operated on’, in a sense of the word. “You should see him before he goes over to your place.” When Bucky crashed his bike, it was when he came back from a check-up on the arm, his driving a little too erratic. His bike became the only real victim in the crash, but it could have been a while lot worse.

“Come on, of course I know it isn’t my fault,” Tony replies, and gets up from his chair. “ _Anyway_. After the half-brother died, things went bad, as I’m sure you’ve noticed in Matthews criminal records. Didn’t show up for the funeral. There are a lot of small things that never made it onto the record. A couple of broken up fights no one actually bothered to report. They’re a footnote, but he still broke a guy’s nose. Put another guy in the hospital.” Steve doesn’t say anything. It doesn’t surprise Steve, not with the rest of the criminal record. “He tried to get a license to carry a gun, but was understandably denied.”

“Okay. So he’s got anger management issues,” Steve says, but before he can add in the follow up, before he can ask ‘ _what else?’_ , his phone starts to buzz on the table. Natasha's calling. The moment Steve answers the call, the wailing of police sirens emerges, louder than they usually sound even inside the car

“Natasha, what’s going on?” Steve asks.

“Matthews is on the run,” Natasha replies hurriedly. She must have let Clint drive, because there’s no way Clint would be cursing so much if he wasn’t. ‘ _Get out of the way, damn it! Don’t you know what these sirens are for?! Fuck off!’_ it is actually quite amusing. “We went up to his apartment and when the sister told him that ‘ _police officers are here to see you_ ’, he ducked out of the window, down the fire escape and got on a motorcycle.” _‘God damn it! Move! We’re gonna lose him!’_ Steve grabs the keys to his own motorcycle in a hurry. If he is fast enough, he can help them in the chase. Sam just looks confused, Tony looks far from impressed.

“Okay. On my way. Where is he?” Steve asks.

“If he continues on, he’ll pass by the station soon.” And that’s all he needs to know, really. He makes his to the elevator yet again.

“Hey, where are you going?!” Sam asks him, he has to yell to make sure Steve hears him.

“ _To catch a runaway suspect!”_ Steve yells back, before he disappears into the stairwell.

 

When Steve went into work this morning, he wasn’t expecting to chase down suspects along narrow side streets. Yet that is still what he ends up doing. And he would be lying if he were to say that he didn’t secretly love it. He can speed without getting arrested for it, he can cut his corners too loose and he is definitely gaining in on Daniel. Daniel doesn’t really seem like he has much experience riding the bike, he is more careful than Steve has seen anyone be, except for the speed, of course. Upside is, Steve is comfortable riding like this, while Daniel isn’t; he is starting to make mistakes, _many_ mistakes. Two times already he nearly slipped. And Steve’s right behind him, each and every time. They are just going round in unending circles, one way then the other, until even Steve is a little unsure of where they are exactly.

It takes almost half an hour before Steve grows sick of chasing after the guy and decides to speed up just barely enough to overtake the guy, he’s already going _way_ too fast for this stretch and he’s pretty sure he’s already almost ran over three different pedestrians, ignoring the ones that Daniel nearly did. If Steve can lead the guy into a blind alley then he’ll have no choice but to stop. But really, blind alleys aren’t all that easy to find, especially when Steve can only really chase, not direct him into streets. All he can really do is hope that he finally makes a mistake and drives into one himself.

He doesn’t. But he drives into the next best thing: a small side-street where the asphalt is being renewed; so most of the street is shut off from traffic. Only the sidewalks are really accessible, nowhere near enough space for a motorcycle. Daniel looks back to see if Steve is still on his trail, which is the one thing he shouldn’t have done; he doesn’t see the roadwork until he’s well into the street and there is not enough room for him to turn. He still tries to turn, but it is hopeless; the corner is too sharp and he loses control of his vehicle. It leaves him on the asphalt and skids on alone for a few meters. The paintwork gets seriously damaged, little flecks of dark red paint scatter the newly paved street. The body gets dented as well, but that appears to be the last of the damage. It shrieks as it skids across, a loud piercing sound that frays Steve’s nerves and sets his teeth on edge.

Steve stops his own motorcycle a lot more gracefully than Daniel does and leans it against the left apartment building to stabilize it. The building is a tall high-rise, obviously an apartment building. A single young woman looks down from one of the fire escapes, a couple of floors down. She yells something about calling 911. The rest of the people don’t even bother with investigating the sounds anymore. Daniel isn’t going to go anywhere, not in this state. He is straddled on the ground, curled in on himself with one of his arms tucked inside the little Daniel-ball. For a few seconds there is an awful quiet, even the traffic outside fades into muted noise.

Then Daniel groans, groans like every breath he takes stabs needles into his skin, over and over again. He clutches his arms even closer to his ribs and groans again, louder. He doesn’t even try to get up from the concrete, just keeps lying there. Steve doesn’t even walk closer, doesn’t run over to see how badly Daniel got hurt. But even from where he is standing, he can see the scrapes all over his bare arms. Steve grabs his phone out of his pocket and calls Natasha. He really should have done this sooner.

“Steve, did you manage to stop him?” she says by way of greeting. “Or did you lose him?”

“Oh, he’s not going anywhere,” Steve replies into the microphone in his helmet. “We’re opposite the Commandos, that cafe? He may need an ambulance." Daniel still isn't moving much, besides his pained groans. The injuries can't have been that bad, he wasn't even going all that fast when he turned. Scrapes should be the worst of his injuries. Maybe some bruises on his sides from where he hit the concrete. But definitely nothing major enough to have him curled into a ball, not like this at all. "I am going to see how he is doing. Gonna lose you there for a minute." Steve takes off his helmet, struggling a little with the clasp that just won't let go and in defiance pinches a piece of his skin in between the clasps. " _Damn it!_ "

"Hey, captain?" Steve's eyes snap down to Daniel at once. Captain? No one has called him that in years, not seriously anyway. And how does Daniel even know that he used to be one? The one detail he really should have noticed at once takes a while to sink in, trickling slowly through his confusion: Daniel is no longer curled up in his little Daniel-shaped-ball but sitting up. The handgun formerly kept in the back of his pants trained on Steve, ever so steadily. Steve's eyes widen in shock, his first reflex is to copy the motion, grab his trusty Glock...only to realize that it is still stocked away in its gun locker. _Shit_. He is so, thoroughly screwed. "You really should have saved my brother." Daniel sounds so calm, so at ease. It chills Steve to his bones. But he can't keep standing there. He can't do nothing, so he moves forward. If he can come close enough, kick the gun away somehow... Talk him down?

"Is this really want you want to do?" Steve asks, his voice surprisingly steadier than he expected it to be. Just another hostage situation. They've dealt with this before. He can do it. "Kill a cop? You'll set a whole police corps on you."

"I'm not just killing a cop," Daniel says at once. "I am killing the best friend of Joshua's murderer. Maybe then Barnes will realize what he did to my family!" The gun still hasn't moved an inch, barely a tremor goes through it. "What it feels like to have the only solid factor ripped from your life! Pity he isn't here to see it. But prison is the right place for him. It will do him some good." Steve steps forward, big sudden strides filled with anger. Bucky tried his best to save Joshua. Tries his best.

" _Shut up_!" he yells. And Daniel does; he silently smiles while his gun screams out.

Steve stumbles backwards as the bullet hits him, only his bike keeps him from completely falling to the ground. Pain erupts from his shoulder, a familiar old pain renewed in full sharpness and detail. Spreading out from his shoulder to his finger tips, his neck and all over his back. He closes his eyes tight against the sudden pain, his left hand automatically feeling for the wound. Blood forms a sticky mess between his skin, his shirt and his motor cycle jacket, but all Steve can think about is that he is ruining Bucky's favorite Henley and he is not just going to let this guy do that. Steve scrambles upright, the wailing of sirens is so close now. So damn close.

"Stubborn bastard, aren't you?" Daniel says and tsks before he fires another shot, it hits steve right above the hip. The pain all blurs together at that point, half of his body aches and he just can't get back up anymore. Steve can't put pressure on both of them, but he tries. Tries his best through the jabs he feels each time he presses down further. He can't get up, not like this. Tears well up in his eyes, but he refuses to let them fall. He is not weak; He can do this.

Daniel walks closer, and he still smiles widely. Steve wants that stupid grin gone so badly. He wants to wipe of off so badly. It is not until he sees the small pocket knife on the key chain that Steve realizes just what he is going to do. He doesn't have the power to defend himself, not really. He's already losing so much blood. Any type of arm movement sets off another tidal wave of suppressed blood. But he promised. He promised Bucky that he would not let the sniper take him down. And he _won't_.

"Originally that youngest brother was going to be eight. What’s his name again? Nicholas? I didn’t have a chance to after Barnes got arrested," Daniel says happily, after he kneels down next to Steve. "You are a much better eight, don't you think?” Steve tries to scramble up and away, but Daniel isn’t going to let him, that much is obvious. “Don't struggle, Steve... This will hurt a lot more if you do."

"Fuck off," Steve snarls and he does move, if only it is lean his head and shoulders away. He gets a little over an inch of movement before Daniel plants his right hand on Steve’s forehead, keeps it pinned down against the gravel. Steve punches Daniel in the nose for good measure, but he doesn’t have enough momentum to make his hit count for anything. Daniel just digs a little deeper with that blasted knife. It hurts so damn much. He is fading fast. His eyelids are so heavy, he struggles to keep them open for even a minute at a time. He can’t really see the police cruiser pull up to the scene. But he hears them yell his name. Hears them like through water, vague and unclear.


	6. Epilogue - Just Give Me a Chance to Hold On

There is a particular scent about hospitals, one that Steve never manages to get used to. It doesn’t matter if he spends a day there, doesn’t matter if he ends up there for a month. Whenever he gets out, the first thing he does, is smell the fresh air and rejoice in it’s cleanliness. There is always that scent of antiseptic, of rubbing alcohol and saline bags that burns in his nose. Someone has tried to liven the place up this time, there are some flowers somewhere nearby, but they aren’t strong enough to get every bit of the scent out. Instead it makes for a sickly sweet mix that may even burn more.

That scent is the first thing that pulls Steve from his unconsciousness. He’s still groggy, as groggy as he has ever been. It feels like his brain has turned into jell-o, thinking goes slow and while he can hear that there are people talking nearby, their voices feel distant. At first he can barely understand a word they are saying, but that gets better by the second. He can’t quite tell who is speaking yet, but there are at least two people.

“How is he doing?” one of both people asks. “Any progress?” Steve knows the voice, but the name belonging to that voice slips out of his hands, like a wet piece of soap.

“The anesthetic is working off. Should wake up soon,” another even more familiar voice says. His mind doesn’t take long to conjure up a name this time: _mom_. Sarah’s here. “I’ve been popping in every now and then. You’re welcome to wait in the room. I’ll get you a chair.” A third voice cuts in now.

“No need, I should go get something to eat anyway,” it says.

“Hurry up, then,” Sarah orders, “Or the lunch room will be out of sandwiches. You know those don’t last long.” Someone puts a hand on Steve’s shoulder, squeezes it gently.

“Just wake up, okay?” the third person asks. And Steve wants to, he is so close. ‘ _I will’_ he wants to say. ‘ _I am going to wake up_ ’. But for now, his eyelids are deciding that it is too difficult to open up. “Come get me when he does, okay?”

“I will, don’t worry,” the first person replies.

 

When he finally opens his eyes fully, the room is so full of light he has to squeeze his eyes close again. Darkness is much more appealing. But he’s had darkness enough.

“ _Bright_ ,” Steve complains as he opens his eyes back up into slits. “Too bright.”

“ _Steve!”_ the person in the chair says and this time, Steve recognizes him. _Nikolai_. Nikolai gets up from his chair and closes two of the three curtains, the hellish brightness settles into a nice dusk, so Steve can open his eyes fully, still trying to recapitulate, but a lot less. “This better?”

“Kolya,” Steve says. “Loads better. Thank you.” The orange chair gets dragged out to next to Steve’s bed, the metal legs squeal as they scrape the floor. Nikolai takes a seat, left foot resting on his right knee.

“Just so you know, you’ve got the whole family worried,” he says, half a smile on his face. “Especially James. But Мама? She was very... anxious. Said something about Coney Island and that she _knew_ that something was off about it?” Steve groans. Of course she would be worried. Hopefully Bucky did explain that they were going to tell her what was going on... Maybe. If Bucky is even out of jail... Steve never disconnected the call, so hopefully Natasha and Clint heard the whole deal. Maybe taped it.

“Oh, God,” Steve mutters. “I _really_ need to apologize to her.”

“Oh yeah, you do,” Nikolai replies amusedly. “But you have some time to think of what you’re gonna say to her. She said she’d stop by when you’re awake.” He smiles. “Talking about people that will visit when you’re awake, there’s someone I need to go find.” Nikolai is almost out of the room before he turns around. “ _Don’t_ fall asleep on me, okay?” Steve can’t really promise that, he’s still sluggish but he’s clearing up well. It won’t take too long before he is properly awake.

“Promise,” Steve says. “I’ll stay awake.” Nikolai leaves the room. Steve tries to sit up. It doesn’t go well. His whole body feels like he’s been working out all day, muscles sore but only aching dully. Of course there is the IV sticking out of his hand, but Steve knows better than to pull that one out. He needs it. The pain is still very dulled, distant. The bandage around the right side of his neck pulls in each and every direction whenever he moves. No matter how nicely they’ll treat it, it will likely become a scar. One that carries a lot more weight than his previous scars combined. That is not what bugs Steve the most though. No, this is a scar that Bucky will feel responsible for. And he just can’t have that. Because none of this is Bucky’s fault. And he is not going to let Bucky believe that this is his fault.

He feels like a mummy; the lower part of his torso is all wrapped up same as his right shoulder, right arm stuck in a sling. It makes sitting up a lot harder, now he can only really use his left hand. He's neve rbeen good at doing anything left handed, but he'll learn. What bothers him more is that he has got no idea of what day it is. Time is pretty easy to guess, if there's people going on lunch breaks, but day? It might as well be two weeks later, for all Steve knows.

"Good to see you're finally up." Steve looks up at once. Alexander is standing in the doorway, lounging slightly. "Need to change your bandages. Do you mind?"

"No, go ahead," Steve replies. "I didn't know they let you change bandages now. What did you do to piss people off?" Alexander walks towards Steve and shakes his head.

“I volunteered,” Alexander replies. “Gave me an excuse to check up on you without getting reprimanded. Just doin’ my job.” He looks around the room, a little surprised. “I don’t see your bodyguard. Where is he off to?” Steve frowns, watching Alexander lay out his supplies. _His bodyguard?_

“Nikolai was here,” Steve says, a little dumbfounded. “But he went to find someone when he noticed I was awake. Who do you mean?” Alexander raises an eyebrow at Steve before he gently tears away the bandages covering his neck wound. He is oddly gentle about it, makes sure not to hurt Steve too much. He has never seen the gentle doctor side of his brother, but he definitely does like this side.

“You really can’t think of who?” he asks instead. “Okay, this might hurt a bit.” Which, if Steve’s got enough experience with doctor’s speech, actually means ‘ _it’ll hurt like hell’_. It stings less than Steve has been expecting it to.

“I...” he pauses. The only person Steve can think of is probably still in jail. “ _Bucky?_ ” Alexander starts bandaging up the wound again.

“Damn right,” Bucky shows up in the doorway, the last half of his sandwich still in hand. He does not look impressed. “I remember you telling me something along the lines of: ‘ _I’m not going to let him kill me.’_.”

“I didn’t,” Steve replies smugly. The smile tugs on the bandage. “What? I just got shot a little.” Bucky shakes his head disapprovingly.

“ _Just got shot a little?”_ he echoes, incredulous. “They pumped liters of blood into you to replace the ones you lost. You were _damn_ lucky that none of your intestines got perforated. That surgery took _hours_ and the rest of your team only got me out after that guy admitted to the murders, admitted to framing me!” Alexander takes one extra look at Steve and Bucky and gathers up his supplies.

“You know what, I’m going to come back in a couple of minutes. Let you guys work this out on your own,” he says. “I got some other patients to look after. I’ll go find ma, tell her you’re okay.” Steve watches Alexander leave the room. Bucky sits down where Nikolai sat just minutes earlier.

“I was worried,” Bucky finally allows. “I can’t lose you. _I can’t_.” Steve smiles. Maybe it is the anesthetic still at work, or maybe he’s just plain stupid.

“Hey, you still want to know why I never corrected anyone?” he asks slowly. Bucky looks confused.

“This a better time than jail?”

“Yeah. You can run out now, if you don’t like the answer,” Steve mutters. His heart feels like its pounding in his throat, the monitor on the left side of his bed picks up on that. Bucky looks at it, then at Steve curiously. “I didn’t want to tell them no because I.” He pauses in the middle of the sentence. God damn it. He’s actually going to say this out loud. “Because I want it to be true.”

Bucky stays silent, his face doesn’t change. Steve hates this. He has made a mistake. The biggest mistake of his life.

“If you don’t feel the same, I understand,” he continues but before he can spout

“ _Shut up_ ,” Bucky breathes and leans in to Steve from his spot on the chair. Steve can’t breathe, he _can’t_. Bucky’s so close, bites his lip before he bridges the distance between them. No matter how much Steve has imagined the way Bucky’s lips would feel on his, the reality is so much better.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Interrogation - artwork for We'll Run for our Lives](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7895083) by [bopeep](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bopeep/pseuds/bopeep)




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